Potent antimicrobial agents against azole-resistant fungi based on pyridinohydrazide and hydrazomethylpyridine structural motifs.

Schiff base derivatives have recently been shown to possess antimicrobial activity, and these derivatives include a limited number of salicylaldehyde hydrazones. To further explore this structure-activity relationship between salicylaldehyde hydrazones and antifungal activity, we previously synthesized and analyzed a large series of salicylaldehyde and formylpyridinetrione hydrazones for their ability to inhibit fungal growth of both azole-susceptible and azole-resistant species of Candida. While many of these analogs showed excellent growth inhibition with low mammalian cell toxicity, their activity did not extend to azole-resistant species of Candida. To further dissect the structural features necessary to inhibit azole-resistant fungal species, we synthesized a new class of modified salicylaldehyde derivatives and subsequently identified a series of modified pyridine-based hydrazones that had potent fungicidal antifungal activity against multiple Candida spp. Here we would like to present our synthetic procedures as well as the results from fungal growth inhibition assays, mammalian cell toxicity assays, time-kill assays and synergy studies of these novel pyridine-based hydrazones on both azole-susceptible and azole-resistant fungal species.