Development of Potent Antibacterial Chalcone Derivatives Containing 2,4-Thiazolidinedione for Fighting Multidrug-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus

The emergence of methicillin and vancomycin resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections is a growing global health concern that is causing increasing illness and death. The growing problem of drug resistance has emphasized the need to discover and develop new antibacterial agents that work through different mechanisms to address this issue. To address this issue, a number of chalcone derivatives of Thiazolidine-2,4-dione were designed and synthesized as potential antibacterial agents. When evaluated against a panel of bacteria known as ESKAP, compounds 7a, 7h, and 7d were found to have highly selective inhibitory activity against Staphylococcus aureus at a concentration of 25μg/mL. This result suggests that these compounds have specific and powerful activity against S. aureus and have no effect against gram-negative bacteria.