The Development of Biologically Important Spirooxindoles as New Antimicrobial Agents

Background: Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health today, leading to higher medical costs and increased mortality. Because of the emergence and rapid spread of new resistance mechanisms globally, a growing number of infections are becoming harder to treat as the antibiotics used to treat them become less effective. Therefore, the development of new effective antimicrobial agents is still urgently needed. In last decades, a large number of structurally novel spirooxindoles have been synthesized mainly based on the ylide intermediates generated in situ and further assessed for their antimicrobial activity against different types of bacteria, leading to the discovery of some potent lead compounds with antimicrobial potentials. Objective: The aim of this review to submarize recent advances on the synthesis, structure- activity relationship studies (SARs) and antimicrobial activity of spirooxindoles. Methods: Peer-reviewed research work on spirooxindoles with antimicrobial activity were downloaded from bibliographic databases and analyzed based on their chemoptypes. Results: 50 papers were retrieved from the literature databases, of which 20 papers described the synthesis and antimicrobial activity of spirooxindoles. Conclusion: This review highlights the importance of spirooxindoles as potential antimicrobial agents. The antimicrobial activity of spirooxindoles against different types of bacteria is less studied, mainly centering on primary antimicrobial assessment, some of these compounds have showed interesting antimicrobial activity. However, the current study is only limited to primary antimicrobial assessment, no detailed modes of action are investigated.