Inspired by the high antituberculous activity of novel nitro-substituted derivatives and based on promising predicted ADMET properties we have synthesized a series of 33 salicylanilides containing nitro-group in their salicylic part and evaluated them for their in vitro antimycobacterial, antimicrobial and antifungal activities. The presence of nitro-group in position 4 of the salicylic acid was found to be beneficial and the resulting molecules exhibited minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) ranging from 2 to 32 μM against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The best activity was found for 2-hydroxy-4-nitro-N-[4-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl]benzamide (MIC=2 μM). 4-Nitrosalicylanilides were also found to be active against all Staphylococcus species tested while for MRSA strain 2-hydroxy-4-nitro-N-[4-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl]benzamide's MIC was 0.98 μM. None of the nitrosalicylanilides was active against Enterococcus sp. J 14365/08 and no considerable activity was found against Gram-negative bacteria or fungi. The hepatotoxicity of all nitrosalicylanilides was found to be in the range of their MICs for HepG2 cells.
Keywords: Cytotoxicity; In silico ADMET prediction; In vitro antimicrobial activity; In vitro antimycobacterial activity; Nitro group; Salicylanilides.
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