Synthesis and antibacterial evaluation of novel psoralen derivatives against methicillin‐resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)

Today, the bacterial infections caused by multidrug‐resistant pathogens seriously threaten human health. Thereby, there is an urgent need to discover antibacterial drugs with novel mechanism. Here, novel psoralen derivatives had been designed and synthesized by a scaffold hopping strategy. Among these targeted twenty‐five compounds, compound ZM631 showed the best antibacterial activity against methicillin‐resistant S. aureus (MRSA) with the low MIC of 1 μg/mL which is 2‐fold more active than that of the positive drug gepotidacin. Molecular docking study revealed that compound ZM631 fitted well in the active pockets of bacterial S. aureus DNA gyrase and formed a key hydrogen bond binding with the residue ASP‐1083. These findings demonstrated that the psoralen scaffold could serve as an antibacterial lead compound for further drug development against multidrug‐resistant bacterial infections.