Synthesis and Biological Studies of Amphiphilic Compounds Derived from Saccharides and Aminoglycosides

Adjacent cells communicate through gap junctions (GJs). These GJs are formed by head to head docking of two hemichannels (HCs) from two adjacent cells. HCs are connexin hexamer proteins. Connexin mutation is the most frequent cause of childhood hearing loss. This hearing impairment affects 2 in every 2000 children. Inhibition of the HCs might be the key factor to treat such disorders. A library of amphiphilic kanamycins was synthesized to be tested as HC inhibitors. These compounds showed excellent inhibition activity in comparison with the parent compound (kanamycin A) with less toxicity. A library of monosaccharide esters with varying carbon chain lengths (acetyl (C2) to hexadecyl (C16)) were synthesized, characterized, and tested for bioactivity. Carbohydrate esters showed low toxicity while remaining active against bacteria and fungi. The compound 6-O-tetradecanoyl-D-mannopyranose (MAN014), a mannose ester with a fourteen-carbon chain, showed the greatest antibacterial and antifungal properties. A mode of action study was tested against Staphylococcus aureus (bacteria) and Fusarium graminearum (fungus) and found the compound perturbed the cell membrum

Fluorogenic probe for Detection of Hydrogen Sulfide in Living System

. We consider a network serving a patchwork of overlapping regions where jobs from a local region are assigned to a collection of local servers. Copies of these jobs are simultaneously queued at all the local servers. When a copy of the job begins service at one of the servers it is removed from the other queues. The system is equivalent to one in which the exact service requirement of each job is known at arrival time, and each job joins the local queue with the shortest waiting time. We describe how the amount of work in the network becomes large in the simple case of two servers, with one arrival stream for each server and a third, routeable arrival stream. If the proportion of routeable jobs is large enough then the waiting times at the servers become large in tandem when the total workload becomes large, thus delaying overload as long as possible. The fact that this resource pooling can be attained with a local routing policy not dependent on the state of the network has engineeri..

Antifungal Activities of 4”,6”-Disubstituted Amphiphilic Kanamycins

Amphiphilic kanamycins derived from the classic antibiotic kanamycin have attracted interest due to their novel bioactivities beyond inhibition of bacteria. In this study, the recently described 4″,6″-diaryl amphiphilic kanamycins reported as inhibitors of connexin were examined for their antifungal activities. Nearly all 4″,6″-diaryl amphiphilic kanamycins tested had antifungal activities comparable to those of 4″,6″-dialkyl amphiphilic kanamycins, reported previously against several fungal strains. The minimal growth inhibitory concentrations (MICs) correlated with the degree of amphiphilicity (cLogD) of the di-substituted amphiphilic kanamycins. Using the fluorogenic dyes, SYTOXTM Green and propidium iodide, the most active compounds at the corresponding MICs or at 2×MICs caused biphasic dye fluorescence increases over time with intact cells. Further lowering the concentrations to half MICs caused first-order dye fluorescence increases. Interestingly, 4×MIC or 8×MIC levels resulted in fluorescence suppression that did not correlate with the MIC and plasma membrane permeabilization. The results show that 4″,6″-diaryl amphiphilic kanamycins are antifungal and that amphiphilicity parameter cLogD is useful for the design of the most membrane-active versions. A cautionary limitation of fluorescence suppression was revealed when using fluorogenic dyes to measure cell-permeation mechanisms with these antifungals at high concentrations. Finally, 4″,6″-diaryl amphiphilic kanamycins elevate the production of cellular reactive oxygen species as other reported amphiphilic kanamycins

Chemo- and Site-Selective Alkyl and Aryl Azide Reductions with Heterogeneous Nanoparticle Catalysts

Site-selective modification of bioactive natural products is an effective approach to generating new leads for drug discovery. Herein, we show that heterogeneous nanoparticle catalysts enable site-selective monoreduction of polyazide substrates for the generation of aminoglycoside antibiotic derivatives. The nanoparticle catalysts are highly chemoselective for reduction of alkyl and aryl azides under mild conditions and in the presence of a variety of easily reduced functional groups. High regioselectivity for monoazide reduction is shown to favor reduction of the least sterically hindered azide. We hypothesize that the observed selectivity is derived from the greater ability of less-hindered azide groups to interact with the surface of the nanoparticle catalyst. These results are complementary to previous Staudinger reduction methods that report a preference for selective reduction of electronically activated azides

Divergent Synthesis of Three Classes of Antifungal Amphiphilic Kanamycin Derivatives

A concise and novel method for site-selective alkylation of 1,3,6′,3″-tetraazidokanamycin has been developed that leads to the divergent synthesis of three classes of kanamycin A derivatives. These new amphiphilic kanamycin derivatives bearing alkyl chains length of 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, and 16 have been tested for their antibacterial and antifungal activities. The antibacterial effect of the synthesized kanamycin derivatives declines or disappears as compared to the original kanamycin A. Several compounds, especially those with octyl chain at O-4″ and/or O-6″ positions on the ring III of kanamycin A, show very strong activity as antifungal agents. In addition, these compounds display no toxicity toward mammalian cells. Finally, computational calculation has revealed possible factors that are responsible for the observed regioselectivity. The simplicity in chemical synthesis and the fungal specific property make the lead compounds ideal candidates for the development of novel antifungal agents

Structure–Activity Relationships for Antibacterial to Antifungal Conversion of Kanamycin to Amphiphilic Analogues

Novel fungicides are urgently needed. It was recently reported that the attachment of an octyl group at the O-4″ position of kanamycin B converts this antibacterial aminoglycoside into a novel antifungal agent. To elucidate the structure–activity relationship (SAR) for this phenomenon, a lead compound FG03 with a hydroxyl group replacing the 3″-NH2 group of kanamycin B was synthesized. FG03’s antifungal activity and synthetic scheme inspired the synthesis of a library of kanamycin B analogues alkylated at various hydroxyl groups. SAR studies of the library revealed that for antifungal activity the O-4″ position is the optimal site for attaching a linear alkyl chain and that the 3″-NH2 and 6″-OH groups of the kanamycin B parent molecule are not essential for antifungal activity. The discovery of lead compound, FG03, is an example of reviving clinically obsolete drugs like kanamycin by simple chemical modification and an alternative strategy for discovering novel antimicrobials