Preventing the adhesion of pathogens to host cells provides an innovative approach to tackling multidrug-resistant bacteria. In this regard, the identification of outer membrane protein A (OmpA) as a key bacterial virulence factor has been a major breakthrough. The use of virtual screening helped us to identify a cyclic hexapeptide AOA-2 that inhibits the adhesion of Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Escherichia coli to host cells and the formation of biofilm, thereby preventing the development of infection in vitro and in a murine sepsis peritoneal model. Inhibition of OmpA offers a strategy as monotherapy to address the urgent need for treatments for infections caused by Gram-negative bacilli.

Oxathiocoraline, a member of the quinoxaline antibiotic family, has been synthesized on solid-phase. The depsipeptide exhibits high synthetic complexity owing to the presence of consecutive NMe amino acids, two ester moieties, a disulfide bridge, and two SMe Cys residues. Because of internal diketopiperazine formation, standard stepwise or convergent approaches failed to deliver the linear octadepsipeptide precursor. Therefore, an alternative methodology where an intermolecular disulfide dimer is formed on solid-phase was developed. Cleavage of the dimer from the solid-phase and subsequent bismacrolactamization followed by incorporation of the heterocyclic unit afforded the target compound. Oxathiocoraline showed antitumoral activity in three tumor cell lines.