Antimicrobial activity of long-chain, water-soluble, dendritic tricarboxylato amphiphiles

Abstract

As the antimicrobial activity of the amphiphiles increased with increasing chain length, it is anticipated that maximum activity was not reached with these series. Thus, the identification of the optimal chain length would provide a target compound for development of low-cost, topical microbicides and anti-infectives. Further, these series of dendritic amphiphiles with the very long chains can be used as new water-soluble probes for elucidation of membrane structure and for identification of novel targets for antimicrobial design.