Antibiotic resistance among clinically significant bacterial pathogens is becoming a prevalent threat to public health, and new antibacterial agents with novel mechanisms of action hence are in an urgent need. Utilizing computational docking method and structure-based optimization strategy, we rationally designed and synthesized two series of isoxazol-3-yl- and isoxazol-5-yl-containing benzamide derivatives that targeted the bacterial cell division protein FtsZ. Evaluation of their activity against a panel of Gram-positive and -negative pathogens revealed that compounds B14 and B16 that possessed the isoxazol-5-yl group showed strong antibacterial activity against various testing strains, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and penicillin-resistant S. aureus. Further molecular biological studies and docking analyses proved that the compound functioned as an effective inhibitor to alter the dynamics of FtsZ self-polymerization via a stimulatory mechanism, which finally terminated the cell division and caused cell death. Taken together, these results could suggest a promising chemotype for development of new FtsZ-targeting bactericidal agent.

临床上重要的细菌病原体中的抗生素耐药性正成为对公共卫生的普遍威胁，因此迫切需要具有新颖作用机制的新型抗菌剂。利用计算对接方法和基于结构的优化策略，我们合理地设计和合成了针对细菌细胞分裂蛋白FtsZ的两个系列的含异恶唑-3-基和异恶唑-5-基的苯甲酰胺衍生物。评估它们对一组革兰氏阳性和阴性病原体的活性表明，具有异恶唑-5-基的化合物B14和B16对包括耐甲氧西林的金黄色葡萄球菌在内的各种测试菌株均显示出强大的抗菌活性。和耐青霉素的金黄色葡萄球菌。进一步的分子生物学研究和对接分析证明，该化合物可作为有效抑制剂，通过刺激机制改变FtsZ自聚合动力学，最终终止细胞分裂并导致细胞死亡。综上所述，这些结果可能暗示了开发新型靶向FtsZ的杀菌剂的有希望的化学型。