Staphylococcus aureus is one of the most frequent causes of nosocomial and community-acquired infections, with drugresistant strains being responsible for tens of thousands of deaths per year. S. aureus sortase A inhibitors are designed to interfere with virulence determinants. We have identified disulfanylbenzamides as a new class of potent inhibitors against sortase A that act by covalent modification of the active-site cysteine. A broad series of derivatives were synthesized to derive structure-activity relationships (SAR). In vitro and in silico methods allowed the experimentally observed binding affinities and selectivities to be rationalized. The most active compounds were found to have single-digit micromolar K i values and caused up to a 66 % reduction of S. aureus fibrinogen attachment at an effective inhibitor concentration of 10 μM. This new molecule class exhibited minimal cytotoxicity, low bacterial growth inhibition and impaired sortase-mediated adherence of S. aureus cells. a 100 % � 0.5 % 93 % � 5.6 % n.i. 7 a 98 % � 0.1 % 14 % � 8.9 % 18 % � 1.1 % 7 f 60 % � 0.5 % n.i. 12 % � 3.1 % 7 g 18 % � 3.9 % n.i. 17 % � 7.7 % 7 h 69 % � 1.7 % 23 % � 11 % 13 % � 8.0 % 12 a 90 % � 0.5 % n.i. 15 % � 5.7 % n.i. = no inhibition at 20 μM compound concentration. All results include the mean value and standard deviations from triplicate measurements.