Synthesis and Antibacterial Activity of Amide Derivatives from Acrylopimaric Acid

This paper reports on the synthesis of a series of amide derivatives from acrylopimaric acid (APA). The derivatives contained aromatic groups and were characterized by IR, HNMR, MS, and elemental analysis. The antibacterial activity of the derivatives against Gram-negative bacteria and Gram-positive bacteria were also investigated. When compared with the other derivatives, compounds 3a and 3f showed much higher activity against Escherichia coli (Gram-negative bacteria) with inhibition zones of 5 mm and 5.5 mm, respectively. Structure-activity relationship analysis revealed that ortho-substituted phenyl derivatives and meta-substituted phenyl derivatives exhibited higher activity than the para-substituted derivatives. Meanwhile, the halogen-substituted compounds did not show visible antibacterial activity compared with other compounds, which may have been caused by the lower electron density of the halogensubstituted phenyl rings.