Biological investigation of <i>N</i> -methyl thiosemicarbazones as antimicrobial agents and bacterial carbonic anhydrases inhibitors

Abstract

The enormous burden of the COVID-19 pandemic in economic and healthcare terms has cast a shadow on the serious threat of antimicrobial resistance, increasing the inappropriate use of antibiotics and shifting the focus of drug discovery programmes from antibacterial and antifungal fields. Thus, there is a pressing need for new antimicrobials involving innovative modes of action (MoAs) to avoid cross-resistance rise. Thiosemicarbazones (TSCs) stand out due to their easy preparation and polypharmacological application, also in infectious diseases. Recently, we reported a small library of TSCs (<b>1-9</b>) that emerged for their non-cytotoxic behaviour. Inspired by their multifaceted activity, we investigated the antibacterial, antifungal, and antidermatophytal profiles of derivatives <b>1-9</b>, highlighting a new promising research line. Furthermore, the ability of these compounds to inhibit selected microbial and human carbonic anhydrases (CAs) was assessed, revealing their possible involvement in the MoA and a good selectivity index for some derivatives.