Preparation and characterization of new thiazolidine-4-one derivatives and evaluation of their bactericidal activity

The present study involved the synthesis of several new thiazolidine-4-one derivatives by reacting prepared Schiff bases with thioglycolic acid in absolute ethanol as the solvent. The reaction was carried out using the standard method for the synthesis of organic compounds. The completion of the reaction was confirmed using several measurements, including physical measurements such as melting point, color, and purity. The Rf values were measured using thin-layer chromatography (TLC). More accurate spectroscopic measurements were used to determine the composition of the prepared compounds, including infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), proton and carbon nuclear magnetic resonance ( 1 H and 13 C NMR), and quantitative elemental analysis (C.H.N), which showed results consistent with theoretical calculations. The efficacy of these synthesized compounds on two types of harmful bacteria was studied and compared with the antibiotic ampicillin to see their effect on the bacteria. Whether they can be used as antibiotics in the future: Gram-negative bacteria ( Escherichia coli ) and Gram-positive bacteria ( Staphylococcus aureus ) and the compound (S6) showed the highest efficacy against Gram-positive bacteria, reaching 25 mm at high concentrations, 23 mm at medium concentrations, and 19 mm at low concentrations, which is close to the antibiotic, while the rest of the results were mixed and lower than the antibiotic. The molecular docking of compounds against Staphylococcus aureus was tested due to the compounds' effectiveness against this bacterium. The biotin protein ligase (PDB ID: 4DQ2 ), which plays a role in lipid metabolism and inhibits bacterial growth, was selected. The compounds exhibited multiple binding affinities, allowing their use as bacterial inhibitors against the selected protein target.