Sugar Analogues with Basic Nitrogen in The Ring as Anti-Infectives

Abstract

1. INTRODUCTION Infectious diseases have remained a serious problem for society and concerned government organisations. Due to the dramatic increase of international transport of goods and passengers, dangerous microbial species and infectious diseases can be rapidly distributed over large distances. According to estimations by the World Health Organisation (WHO), nearly 50,000 people are killed by infectious diseases daily. After having been kept at bay for decades, tuberculosis has returned to claim over three million lives per year. In addition, approximately thirty new infectious diseases such as Legionnaire's disease, HIV, or borreliosis have emerged during the past two decades.1 Furthermore, long-known species, for example mycobacteria, the causative agents of such diseases as tuberculosis and leprosy, have acquired a high level of resistance to most commonly employed anti-infective agents. Because of the abundance of pathogenic microorganisms, a tremendous fraction of the pharmaceutical market is devoted to anti-infective drugs. Of a $73 billion total global market of chiral drugs, antibiotics are the largest fraction ($20 billion) closely followed only by cardiovascular therapeutics ($17.5 billion).1