Novel 1,2,4-oxadiazole-chalcone/oxime hybrids as potential antibacterial DNA gyrase inhibitors: Design, synthesis, ADMET prediction and molecular docking study.

New antibacterial drugs are urgently needed to tackle the rapid rise in multi-drug resistant bacteria. DNA gyrase is a validated target for the development of new antibacterial drugs. Thus, in the present investigation, a novel series of 1,2,4-oxadiazole-chalcone/oxime (6a-f) and (7a-f) were synthesized and characterized by IR, NMR (H and C) and elemental analyses. The title compounds were evaluated for their in-vitro antimicrobial activity by the modified agar diffusion method as well as their E. coli DNA gyrase inhibitory activity. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and the structure activity relationships (SARs) were evaluated. Among all, compounds 6a, 6c-e, 7b and 7e were the most potent and proved to possess broad spectrum activity against the tested Gram-positive and Gram-negative organisms. Additionally, compounds 6a (against S. aureus), 6c (against B. subtilis and E. hirae), 6e (against E. hirae), 6f, 7a and 7c (against E. coli) and 7d (against B. subtilis), with MIC value of 3.12 μM were two-fold more potent than the standard ciprofloxacin (MIC = 6.25 μM). Mechanistically, compounds 6c, 7c, 7e and 7b had good inhibitory activity against E. coli gyrase with IC values of 17.05, 13.4, 16.9, and 19.6 µM, respectively, in comparison with novobiocin (IC = 12.3 µM) and ciprofloxacin (IC = 10.5 µM). The molecular docking results at DNA gyrase active site revealed that the most potent compounds 6c and 7c have binding mode and docking scores comparable to that of ciprofloxacin and novobiocin suggesting their antibacterial activity via inhibition of DNA gyrase. Finally, the predicted parameters of Lipinski's rule of five and ADMET analysis showed that 6c and 7c had good drug-likeness and acceptable physicochemical properties. Therefore, the hybridization of the chalcone and oxadiazole moieties could be promising lead as antibacterial candidate which merit further future structural optimizations.