Design, synthesis and antibacterial activity evaluation of pleuromutilin derivatives according to twin drug theory.

A series of novel pleuromutilin derivatives were designed and synthesized based on the twin drugs theory. Piperazinyl and thioether were used as the linkage to connect the pleuromutilin nuclear and sulfonamide to improve the biological activity and water solubility of derivatives. The antibacterial activities against drug-sensitive and drug-resistance bacteria were evaluated by agar dilution method. Most of the 25 compounds displayed excellent antibacterial activities against drug-sensitive bacteria, particularly, five compounds (, , , and ) exerted the excellent antibacterial activities against drug-resistance bacteria.