ABSTRACT:
Bacterial infections contribute to many human diseases and cancer development, and their increasing incidence, together with rising antimicrobial resistance, underscores the urgent need for new potent biologically active compounds. Quantitative structure‐activity relationship (QSAR) modeling was conducted to evaluate a series of oxazole derivatives as antibacterials. Eighteen new 5‐amino‐4‐cyano‐1,3‐oxazoles with promising predictive properties were synthesized and reliably characterized. Fourteen compounds were found to inhibit bacterial growth (MICs varied from 8 to 512 µg/mL). Eight derivatives exhibited the highest activity against colistin‐resistant
Escherichia coli
and
Staphylococcus aureus
isolates with MICs of 8–64 µg/mL. Moreover, six compounds exhibited activities greater or similar to that of reference oxacillin and cefepime against clinical isolates. Analysis of the studied 5‐amino‐4‐cyano‐1,3‐oxazoles as target‐directed glutathione S‐transferase (GST) inhibitors showed that derivatives
7
,
11
, and
12
inhibited GSTA1‐1 with an IC
50
range of 3.2–7.5 µM. Molecular docking results indicate that these compounds can occupy the enzyme's active site. The cytotoxicity results in L20B and RD cell lines showed that compounds
11
and
12
demonstrated significant cytostatic effects, with CD
50
values ranging from 0.02 to 2 µg/mL. Additionally, these two compounds showed moderate acute toxicity toward D. magna, with LC
50
values of 7.27 ± 1.22 and 5.10 ± 1.07 mg/L (D.R. Passino classification).