Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of sulfenimine cephalosporin analogues as β-lactamase inhibitors

Abstract

A series of sulfenimine cephalosporin derivatives(6a—6t) was designed, synthesized and evaluated for their inhibitory activity against class A β-lactamase(TEM-1) derived from E. coli, and class C β-lactamase (cephalosporinase) derived from wild Bacillus subtilis in cell-free systems. Most of the tested compounds showed enhanced inhibitory activity against class C β-lactamase(cephalosporinase) compared with tazobactam. The most promising compounds 6c and 6o in combination with cefradine(IC50=1.80 and 1.59 μmol/L, respectively) were further investigated against a series of clinical isolated β-lactamase-producing bacterial strains. The results reveal that compounds 6c and 6o in combination with cefradine show two to four times more activity than cefradine alone against methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus(MSSA) and Klebsiella pneumoniae. The data suggest that the sulfenimine moiety may be beneficial to the activity and selectivity of inhibitors.