High-throughput screening is the dominant method to identify lead compounds in drug discovery. As such, the makeup of screening libraries will largely dictate the biological targets that can be modulated and the therapeutics that can be developed. Unfortunately, most compound screening collections consist principally of planar molecules with little structural or stereochemical complexity, compounds that do not offer the arrangement of chemical functionality necessary for modulation of many drug targets. Here we describe a novel, general, and facile strategy for the creation of diverse compounds with high structural and stereochemical complexity using readily available natural products as synthetic starting points. We show, through evaluation of chemical properties including fraction of sp3 carbons, ClogP, and the number of stereogenic centers, that these compounds are significantly more complex and diverse than those in standard screening collections, and guidelines are given for the application of this strategy to any suitable natural product.

2-Aminoimidazoles are an emerging class of small molecules that possess the ability to inhibit and disperse biofilms across bacterial order, class, and phylum. Herein, we report the synergistic effect between a 2-aminoimidazole/triazole conjugate and antibiotics toward dispersing preestablished biofilms, culminating with a 3-orders-of-magnitude increase of biofilm dispersion toward Staphylococcus aureus biofilms. Furthermore, we document that the 2-aminoimidazole/triazole conjugate will also resensitize multidrug-resistant strains of bacteria to the effects of conventional antibiotics, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii.

Persistent bacteria, including persister cells within surface-attached biofilms and slow-growing pathogens lead to chronic infections that are tolerant to antibiotics. Here, we describe the structure-activity relationships of a series of halogenated phenazines (HP) inspired by 2-bromo-1-hydroxyphenazine 1. Using multiple synthetic pathways, we probed diverse substitutions of the HP scaffold in the 2-, 4-, 7-, and 8-positions, providing critical information regarding their antibacterial and bacterial eradication profiles. Halogenated phenazine 14 proved to be the most potent biofilm-eradicating agent (≥99.9% persister cell killing) against MRSA (MBEC < 10 μM), MRSE (MBEC = 2.35 μM), and VRE (MBEC = 0.20 μM) biofilms while 11 and 12 demonstrated excellent antibacterial activity against M. tuberculosis (MIC = 3.13 μM). Unlike antimicrobial peptide mimics that eradicate biofilms through the general lysing of membranes, HPs do not lyse red blood cells. HPs are promising agents that effectively target persistent bacteria while demonstrating negligible toxicity against mammalian cells.

Conventional antibiotics are ineffective against non-replicating bacteria (for example, bacteria within biofilms). We report a series of halogenated phenazines (HP), inspired by marine antibiotic 1, that targets persistent bacteria. HP 14 demonstrated the most potent biofilm eradication activities to date against MRSA, MRSE, and VRE biofilms (MBEC = 0.2-12.5 μM), as well as the effective killing of MRSA persister cells in non-biofilm cultures. Frontline MRSA treatments, vancomycin and daptomycin, were unable to eradicate MRSA biofilms or non-biofilm persisters alongside 14. HP 13 displayed potent antibacterial activity against slow-growing M. tuberculosis (MIC = 3.13 μM), the leading cause of death by bacterial infection around the world. HP analogues effectively target persistent bacteria through a mechanism that is non-toxic to mammalian cells and could have a significant impact on treatments for chronic bacterial infections.

High-throughput screening (HTS) is the primary driver to current drug discovery efforts. New therapeutic agents that enter the market are a direct reflection of the structurally simple compounds that make up screening libraries. Unlike medically relevant natural products (e.g., morphine), small molecules currently being screened have low fraction sp3 character and few, if any, stereogenic centers. Although simple compounds have been useful in drugging certain biological targets (e.g., protein kinases), more sophisticated targets (e.g., transcription factors) have largely evaded the discovery of new clinical agents from screening collections. Here, we describe a tryptoline ring distortion strategy that enabled the rapid synthesis of 70 complex and diverse compounds from yohimbine 1, an indole alkaloid. The compounds that were synthesized had architecturally complex and unique scaffolds, unlike 1 and other scaffolds. These compounds were subjected to phenotypic screens and reporter gene assays leading to the identification of new compounds that possess various biological activities, including: antiproliferative activities against cancer cells with functional hypoxia inducible factors, nitric oxide inhibition, inhibition and activation of the antioxidant response element (ARE). This tryptoline ring distortion strategy can begin to address diversity problems in our screening libraries while occupying biologically relevant chemical space in areas critical to human health.