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Antibiotics have been extensively used to treat bacterial infections since Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin 1928. Disease causing microbes that have become resistant to antibiotic drug therapy are an increasing public health problem. According to the world health organization (WHO) there are about 440 000 new cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis emerging annually, causing at least 150 000 deaths. Consequently there is an immense need to develop new types of compounds with new modes of action for the treatment of bacterial infections.

Presented herein is a class of antibacterial ring-fused 2-pyridones, which exhibit inhibitory effects against both the pili assembly system in uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC), named the chaperone usher pathway, as well as polymerization of the major curli subunit protein CsgA, into a functional amyloid fibre. A pilus is an organelle that is vital for the bacteria to adhere to and infect host cells, as well as establish biofilms. Inhibition of the chaperone usher pathway disables the pili assembly machinery, and consequently renders the bacteria avirulent.

The focus of this work has been to develop synthetic strategies to more efficiently alter the substitution pattern of the aforementioned ring-fused 2-pyridones. In addition, asymmetric routes to enantiomerically enriched key compounds and routes to compounds containing BODIPY and coumarin fluorophores as tools to study bacterial virulence mechanisms have been developed. Several of the new compounds have successfully been evaluated as antibacterial agents. In parallel with this research, manipulations of the core structure to create new heterocycle based central fragments for applications in medicinal chemistry have also been performed.