Design and synthesis of 2-aminothiazole based antimicrobials targeting MRSA

Privileged structure-based libraries have been shown to provide high affinity lead compounds for a variety of important biological targets. The present study describes the synthesis and screening of a 2-aminothiazole based compound library to determine their utility as antimicrobials, focusing on MRSA. Several of the compounds in this series demonstrated improved antimicrobial activity as compared to ceftriaxone (CTX), a beta-lactam antibiotic. The most potent compound (21) had MICs in the range of 24 mu g/ml across a panel of Staphylococcus aureus strains. In addition, trifluoromethoxy substituted aminothiazoles and aminobenzothiazoles were found to be potent antimicrobials with MICs of 2-16 mu g/ml. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.