Surprising Antibacterial Activity and Selectivity of Hydrophilic Polyphosphoniums Featuring Sugar and Hydroxyl Substituents.

Surprising Antibacterial Activity and Selectivity of Hydrophilic Polyphosphoniums Featuring Sugar and Hydroxyl Substituents.
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2018 Jul 11;:
Authors: Cuthbert TJ, Hisey B, Harrison TD, Trant JF, Gillies ER, Ragogna PJ
Abstract
There is currently an urgent need for the development of new antibacterial agents to combat the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria. We explored the synthesis and antibacterial activities of novel, sugar-functionalized phosphonium polymers. While these compounds exhibited antibacterial activity, we unexpectedly found that a control polymer poly(tris(hydroxypropyl)vinylbenzylphosphonium chloride) had very high activity against both Gram-negative Escherichia coli and Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus and very low haemolytic activity against red blood cells. These results challenge the conventional wisdom in the field that lipophilic alkyl substituents are required for high antibacterial activity and opens prospects for new classes of antibacterial polymers.
PMID: 29996005 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Angewandte Chemie - July 11, 2018 Category: Chemistry Authors: Cuthbert TJ, Hisey B, Harrison TD, Trant JF, Gillies ER, Ragogna PJ Tags: Angew Chem Int Ed Engl Source Type: research