Abstract

The antibacterial activity of aza-naphthindolizinedione derivatives has been determined. Three compounds, 15, 21 and 40 exhibited strong inhibitory activity against Gram-positive bacterial strains and especially, showed 16 times activity better than vancomycin against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) study indicated that the proposed method was a useful computational tool for prediction of antibacterial activity of aza-naphthindolizinedione derivatives. The molecular descriptors contained in the optimized descriptor subsets encoded information about the van der Waals volumes and AlogP of these derivatives and thus implied the relationship between these factors and antibacterial activity.

Key words: Aza-naphthindolizinedione derivative, antibacterial agent, methicillin-resistantStaphylococcus aureus, quantitative structure-activity relationship.