Antioxidant and antibacterial activity of sulfonamides derived from carvacrol: a structure-activity relationship study

AIMS: To verify the antioxidant and antibacterial potential of sulfonamides derived from carvacrol. BACKGROUND: Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is a growing problem, present in all countries and being discussed worldwide. In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) named the theme as the fifth threat to global health. In this sense, the development of new drugs with antibiotic properties is highly desirable in the context of medicinal chemistry. OBJECTIVE: Correlate the investigations on the antioxidant and antibacterial potential of sulfonamides, carried out from experimental and theoretical studies. METHOD: For the antioxidant assays, were performed: total antioxidant capacity and reducing power, which were correlated with HOMO surfaces. Antibacterial activity was evaluated using the following microorganisms from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) (Rockville, MD, USA): S. aureus ATCC 25295 and E. coli ATCC 18804. RESULT: All sulfonamides tested exhibited antioxidant behavior. In vitro assays presented linear correlation with the energy obtained for HOMO. In addition, the compounds showed antibacterial behavior with both strains tested. Data from molecular docking allowed the discussion betweenstructure-activity relationships. CONCLUSION: Among the investigated compounds, S-6 proved to be very potent and promising, since it presented an interesting bioactivity profile when carrying out the test involving Staphylococcus aureus, which is recognized as the most antibiotic-resistant Gram-positive bacteria. Other: The toxicity and pharmacokinetic profile of these compounds will be investigated.