Synthesis of mycothiol conjugate analogues and evaluation of their antimycobacterial activity.
Riordan SW, Field JJ, Corkran HM, Dasyam N, Stocker BL, Timmer MS, Harvey JE, Teesdale-Spittle PH.
Drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a growing health problem. As proof of principle that the bacterial-specific metabolite mycothiol could be used as a delivery agent for antimycobacterial agents, simplified analogues of mycothiol were synthesised containing an S-trichloroethenyl substituted cysteine residue. It was envisaged that uptake of the mycothiol analogue would be followed by release of the known cytotoxin S-trichloroethenyl cysteine by the action of mycothiol S-conjugate amidase or its paralog, mycothiol deacetylase MshB. Promising activity was displayed against model Mycobacteria, although further development will be required to improve selectivity.