Modulating the activity of short arginine-tryptophan containing antibacterial peptides with N-terminal metallocenoyl groups

• H. Bauke Albada,
• Alina-Iulia Chiriac,
• Michaela Wenzel,
• Maya Penkova,
• Julia E. Bandow,
• Hans-Georg Sahl and
• Nils Metzler-Nolte

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2012, 8, 1753–1764, doi:10.3762/bjoc.8.200

• of small synthetic arginine and tryptophan containing peptides was prepared and analyzed for their antibacterial activity. The effect of N-terminal substitution with metallocenoyl groups such as ferrocene (FcCO) and ruthenocene (RcCO) was investigated. Antibacterial activity in different media

• , growth inhibition, and killing kinetics of the most active peptides were determined. The toxicity of selected derivatives was determined against erythrocytes and three human cancer cell lines. It was shown that the replacement of an N-terminal arginine residue with a metallocenoyl moiety modulates the

• ; medicinal organometallic chemistry; metallocenoyl; peptides; tryptophan; Introduction New antibacterial agents need to be discovered since established antibiotics are increasingly losing ground against resistant bacteria and at the same time the pipeline that is supposed to produce new antibiotics is