Synthesis, biological evaluation, and molecular docking study of thiophene‐, piperazine‐, and thiazolidinone‐based hybrids as potential antimicrobial agents

Abstract Antibiotic resistance in bacteria exacerbates the issue of antimicrobial resistance. Bacteria that cause common or serious infections have evolved resistance to every new antibiotic that has been introduced into the market, to varying degrees, over several decades. Faced with this reality, one of society's most urgent needs is for new antimicrobial drugs with novel mechanisms of action. With this objective, we describe here the development of a novel set of compounds including piperazine‐ and thiophene‐based thiazolidinones (5a–i) and thiophene‐thiazolidinones (6a–i) . Compounds (5a–i) and (6a–i) were developed, synthesized, and tested for their antimicrobial activity, and their structures were elucidated with the help of various analytical techniques. Compounds 5a and 5d showed excellent antibacterial efficacy against Pseudomonas aeruginosa , with MICs of 50 μg/ml, whereas compounds 6c and 6e showed similar potency against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli , respectively. The antifungal efficacy of compounds 5e and 6i against Candida albicans was outstanding (MIC = 50 μg/ml). The only compound that had excellent antifungal efficacy against Aspergillus niger was compound 5e (MIC = 50 μg/ml). The chemico ‐ in silico ‐ biology approach could provide valuable insights into the potential of this novel hybridized scaffold for the development of promising antimicrobial agents.