Structural modification of a specific antimicrobial lead against Helicobacter pylori discovered from traditional Chinese medicine and a structure–activity relationship study

Abstract

Psoralen ( 1a) was found to be a specific and potent antimicrobial lead against Helicobacter pylori ( H. pylori) from a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in the bioassay directed isolation. A series of structurally diverse analogues of 1a were thus designed and synthesized to improve the antimicrobial potency, some of which showed more potent activities than the lead compound ( 1a) against H. pylori. Among them, compound 25a is 16-fold stronger (MIC = 0.39 μg/mL) than 1a (MIC = 6.25 μg/mL), and is even potent than the positive control metronidazole (MIC = 0.50 μg/mL). The in vitro antimicrobial activities against H. pylori of these structurally diverse analogues based on the scaffold of 1a have also led to an outline of structure–activity relationship.