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Published on: June 2, 2017
Para-Substituted Functionalised Ferrocene Esters with Novel Antibacterial Properties
Kevin Muñoz Forti1, Faviola Bernard2, Gustavo Santiago-Collazo2
1Graduate Student, Department of Biotechnology, Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico, Ponce PR 00731; Research Coordinator, Department of Biology, University of Puerto Rico, Ponce PR 00716.
Introduction:
Bacterial antibiotic resistance is on rise despite advances in the development of new antibiotics. In an attempt to circumvent resistance, scientists are shifting focus from modifying existent antibiotics to identifying new antibiotic compounds.
Aim:
To assess the potential antibiotic effects of functionalised ferrocenecarboxylates para-substituted on the phenoxy pendant group to form: 4-fluorophenyl, 4-chlorophenyl, 4-bromophenyl, 4-iodophenyl and 4-(H-pyrrol-1-yl)phenyl.
Materials And Methods:
For this, we employed the Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method using a collection of nine bacterial species: Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Micrococcus luteus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Serratia marcescens, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Bacillus subtilis, Proteus vulgaris and Enterobacter aerogenes.
Results:
The results show that all four-halogen substituted ferrocenecarboxylates 4-fluorophenyl (23.33 μM, 11.66 μM, 5.83 μM), 4-chlorophenyl (10.16 μM, 5.08 μM, 2.54 μM), 4-bromophenyl (9.0 μM, 4.5 μM, 2.25 μM), and 4-iodophenyl (17.12 μM, 8.56 μM, 4.28 μM) exhibited an antibacterial effect by reducing proliferation of Bacillus subtilis. Meanwhile, only 4-bromophenyl (9.0 μM) and 4-chlorophenyl (10.16 μM) ferrocenecarboxylates were able to decrease the growth of Micrococcus luteus.
Conclusion:
Hence, functionalised ferrocenecarboxylates para-substituted with small and simple groups represent a novel class of bio-organometallic compounds with the potential to be used as antibacterial agents.
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