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Small Molecules in Antimicrobial and Anti-quorum Sensing Drug Discovery: Experimental and Computational Approaches

A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Medicinal Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2024 | Viewed by 842

Special Issue Editors

Department of Biology, College of Science, University of Hail, Hail P.O. Box 2440, Saudi Arabia
Interests: bacteriology; phytocompounds; antimicrobial activities; pharmacokinetics; molecular docking; dynamic simulation; ADMET prediction
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Department of Biology, University of Hail, College of Science, P.O. Box 2440, Ha’il 2440, Saudi Arabia
Interests: mycology; bioactive molecules; antimicrobial activities; pharmacokinetics; molecular docking; dynamic simulation; ADMET prediction

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Small molecules (SMs) include various biological molecules with low molecular weight such as glucose, amino acids, fatty acids, and plant secondary metabolites (alkaloids, glycosides, and phenols). Small molecules can also be newly synthetized in the laboratory. In fact, small molecules are a promising candidate to improve human health through the development of new medicine. Small molecules can interact with various proteins involved in different human diseases pathways. Many methods (computational and biochemical) are used to investigate the interactions of SMs with target proteins as a main step in drug discovery. Due to the increase in the isolation of multidrug resistant microorganisms, there is an urgent need to discover new small molecules with a large spectrum of antimicrobial activity. Most pathogenic microorganisms grow in biofilm and communicate between each other via chemical signal molecules. The bacteria in biofilms are more resistant to chemical agents, including antimicrobial drugs. Hence, there is an urgent need to discover new small molecules able to interact with the quorum sensing system and to decrease the production of their virulence related properties.

Within this broad context, this Special Issue welcomes original research and review articles focusing on the biological study of natural and synthetized small molecules combining both experimental and computational approaches.

Dr. Mejdi Snoussi
Dr. Emira Noumi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • small molecules
  • antimicrobial activities
  • biofilm
  • quorum sensing
  • ADMET
  • molecular docking
  • molecular dynamic
  • biological activities

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

12 pages, 2963 KiB  
Article
Antimicrobial Activity of 2-(Piperazin-1-yl)naphtho[2,3-d]thiazole-4,9-dione against Staphylococcus Strains
by Tamami Haraguchi, Saki Hayashi, Seira Nakasaka, Yoshiro Hatanaka, Toshihiro Nagao, Shigemitsu Tanaka, Miki Yoshii, Fumiko Hara, Masayori Hagimori and Miyako Yoshida
Molecules 2024, 29(6), 1277; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules29061277 - 13 Mar 2024
Viewed by 511
Abstract
There is an urgent need to discover and develop novel antibacterial agents. Accordingly, we synthesised 2-(piperazin-1-yl)naphtho[2,3-d]thiazole-4,9-dione (PNT), which exhibits antimicrobial activity. The aim of this study was to characterise PNT as an effective antimicrobial agent. Fluorescence microscopy was used to measure PNT’s uptake [...] Read more.
There is an urgent need to discover and develop novel antibacterial agents. Accordingly, we synthesised 2-(piperazin-1-yl)naphtho[2,3-d]thiazole-4,9-dione (PNT), which exhibits antimicrobial activity. The aim of this study was to characterise PNT as an effective antimicrobial agent. Fluorescence microscopy was used to measure PNT’s uptake into microbial cells (strains of Staphylococcus epidermidis, Staphylococcus aureus, and methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA)), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was used to investigate the influence of PNT on the configuration of microbial cells, and a DNA gyrase supercoiling assay was used to investigate whether PNT inhibits DNA gyrase. PNT was taken up by more than 50% of microbial cells within 30 min. Using TEM, hollowed-out bacterial cytoplasms were observed in the specimen treated with PNT, although there was no disintegration of the bacterial membrane. In the DNA gyrase supercoiling assay, a dose-dependent reduction in fluorescence intensity was observed as the concentration of PNT increased. This suggests that PNT is taken up by microbial cells, resulting in cell disruption, and it reveals that one of the mechanisms underlying the antimicrobial activity of PNT is the inhibition of DNA gyrase. Full article
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