Membrane active 7-thiazoxime quinolones as novel DNA binding agents to decrease the genes expression and exert potent anti-methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus activity.

A novel class of 7-thiazoxime quinolones was developed as potential antimicrobial agents for the sake of bypassing resistance of quinolones. Biological assays revealed that some constructed 7-thiazoxime quinolones possessed effective antibacterial efficiency. Methyl acetate oxime derivative 6l exhibited 32-fold more active than ciprofloxacin against MRSA, which also possessed rapidly bactericidal ability and low toxicity towards mammalian cells. The combination use of 7-thiazoxime quinolone 6l and ciprofloxacin was able to improve antibacterial potency and effectively alleviate bacterial resistance. The preliminarily mechanism exploration revealed that compound 6l could destroy the cell membrane and insert into MRSA DNA to bind with DNA gyrase, then decrease the expression of gyrB and femB genes. The above results strongly suggested that methyl acetate oxime derivative 6l held a promise for combating MRSA infection.