Boronic species as promising inhibitors of the Staphylococcus aureus NorA efflux pump: study of 6-substituted pyridine-3-boronic acid derivatives.

In response to the extensive use of antibiotics, bacteria have evolved numerous mechanisms of defense against antimicrobial agents. Among them, extrusion of the antimicrobial agents outside the bacterial cell through efflux pumps is a major cause of concern. At first limited to one or few structurally-related antibiotics, bacterial resistance have then progressed towards cross-resistance between different classes of antibiotics, leading to multidrug-resistant microorganisms. Emergence of these pathogens requires development of novel therapeutic strategies and inhibition of efflux pumps appears to be a promising strategy that could restore the potency of existing antibiotics. NorA is the most studied chromosomal efflux pump of Staphylococcus aureus; it is known to be implied in resistance of Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) strains against a wide range of unrelated substrates, including hydrophilic fluoroquinolones. Starting from 6-benzyloxypyridine-3-boronic acid I that we previously identified as a potential inhibitor of the NorA efflux pump against the NorA-overexpressing S. aureus 1199B strain (SA1199B), we describe here the synthesis and biological evaluation of a series of 6-(aryl)alkoxypyridine-3-boronic acids. 6-(3-Phenylpropoxy)pyridine-3-boronic acid 3i and 6-(4-phenylbutoxy)pyridine-3-boronic acid 3j were found to potentiate ciprofloxacin activity by a 4-fold increase compared to the parent compound I. In addition, it has been shown that both compounds promote Ethidium Bromide (EtBr) accumulation in SA1199B, thus corroborating their potential mode of action as NorA inhibitors.

First identification of boronic species as novel potential inhibitors of the Staphylococcus aureus NorA efflux pump.

Overexpression of efflux pumps is an important mechanism of bacterial resistance that results in the extrusion of antimicrobial agents outside the bacterial cell. Inhibition of such pumps appears to be a promising strategy that could restore the potency of existing antibiotics. The NorA efflux pump of Staphylococcus aureus confers resistance to a wide range of unrelated substrates, such as hydrophilic fluoroquinolones, leading to a multidrug-resistance phenotype. In this work, approximately 150 heterocyclic boronic species were evaluated for their activity against susceptible and resistant strains of S. aureus. Twenty-four hit compounds, although inactive when tested alone, were found to potentiate ciprofloxacin activity by a 4-fold increase at concentrations ranging from 0.5 to 8 µg/mL against S. aureus 1199B, which overexpresses NorA. Boron-free analogues showed no biological activity, thus revealing that the boron atom is crucial for biological activity. This work describes the first reported efflux pump inhibitory activity of boronic acid derivatives.

[3,3]-Sigmatropic rearrangement of boronated allylcyanates: a new route to α-aminoboronate derivatives and trisubstituted tetrahydrofurans.

[3,3]-Sigmatropic cyanate-isocyanate rearrangement provides a powerful tool for the preparation of α-isocyanato allylboronic esters, which can be further trapped with a variety of nucleophiles. Hydrogenation gave the corresponding α-aminoboronates derivatives while addition of aldehydes afforded homoallylic alcohols, (tetrahydrofuran-2-yl)carbamate, ether, or urea derivatives.

Aminoboronic acids and esters: from synthetic challenges to the discovery of unique classes of enzyme inhibitors.

Although boronic acids have attracted considerable interest as versatile intermediates in organic synthesis, their contributions in chemical biology and drug discovery programs have long been underestimated. This situation is changing since the beginning of the 2000s, mainly due to significant advances in modern organoborane chemistry and the recent FDA approval of Velcade®, a boropeptide used for multiple myeloma treatment. There is now a significant renewed interest in the design and synthesis of new boron-containing compounds. Due to their close analogy to their carbon counterparts, aminoboronic acids, alone or incorporated at the C-terminal position of a peptide, represent one of the major classes of organoboranes evaluated as potential drug candidates. This critical review aims to provide an overview of the current state of the art in their synthesis and their most relevant biological properties (156 references).

Iridium-Catalyzed Allylic Amination Route to α-Aminoboronates: Illustration of the Decisive Role of Boron Substituents.

The development of a new route to α-aminoboronates using an iridium-catalyzed allylic amination on boronated substrates is described. Unlike the boronate group, the trifluoroborato substituent was found to govern the regioselectivity exclusively in favor of branched products. The transformation of an allylic substitution product into an α-aminoboronic ester in an efficient way validated the implementation of this approach.

An inter-molecular dative B←N bond in 5-(4,4,5,5-tetra-methyl-1,3,2-dioxa-borolan-2-yl)-1,3-thia-zole.

The title compound, C(9)H(14)BNO(2)S, is in an unusual bend conformation and the B atom of one mol-ecule within the crystal forms an inter-molecular dative bond with the N atom of a neighbouring mol-ecule, an infrequent phenomenon in boronic derivative crystals.

An efficient two-step total synthesis of the quaterpyridine nemertelline.

Regioselective and univocal Suzuki cross-coupling reactions performed on halopyridinyl boronic acids provide a flexible and versatile route to a multigram scale synthesis of 2,2'-dichloro-3,4'-bipyridine 14, which allows couplings with excess pyridin-3-yl boronic acid to give a new and efficient two-step rapid synthesis of nemertelline, the quaterpyridine neurotoxin isolated from a Hoplonemertine sea worm.

2-bromo-6-(4,4,5,5-tetramethyl-1,3,2-dioxaborolan-2-yl)pyridine, a new unexpected bifunctional building block for combinatorial chemistry.

The first reported structure of a pyridin-2-ylboron derivative, viz. the title compound, C(11)H(15)BBrNO(2), (I), is compared with its regioisomer 2-bromo-5-(4,4,5,5-tetramethyl-1,3,2-dioxaborolan-2-yl)pyridine, (II) [Sopková-de Oliveira Santos, Lancelot, Bouillon & Rault (2003). Acta Cryst. C59, o111-o113]. Structural differences are observed, firstly in the orientation of the dioxaborolane ring with respect to the pyridine ring and secondly in the bond angles of the BO(2) group. These differences do not explain the experimentally observed differences in chemical reactivity between (I) and (II) but do confirm the relatively lower stability of (I). However, ab initio calculations of the HOMO (highest occupied molecular orbital) and LUMO (lowest unoccupied molecular orbital), based on the known crystal structures of the two compounds, show different distributions, which correspond to the differences observed during chemical reactions.

2-(6-bromopyridin-3-yl)-4,4,5,5-tetramethyl-1,3,2-dioxaborolane and (6-bromopyridin-3-yl)boronic acid, new bifunctional building blocks for combinatorial chemistry.

The first comparative study between two new heterocyclic boron derivatives, viz. a (6-bromopyridin-3-yl)boronic ester, C(11)H(15)BBrNO(2), and (6-bromopyridin-3-yl)boronic acid, C(5)H(5)BBrNO(2), shows a small but not significant difference in their C-B bond lengths, which cannot explain the experimentally observed difference in their stabilities. The crystal packing of the boronic ester consists principally of van der Waals interactions, while the boronic acid molecules interact in their crystal through hydrogen bonds.