Antimycobacterial assessment of Salicylanilide benzoates including multidrug-resistant tuberculosis strains.

The increasing emergence especially of drug-resistant tuberculosis has led to a strong demand for new anti-tuberculosis drugs. Eighteen salicylanilide benzoates were evaluated for their inhibition potential against Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Mycobacterium avium and two strains of Mycobacterium kansasii; minimum inhibitory concentration values ranged from 0.5 to 16 μmol/L. The most active esters underwent additional biological assays. Four benzoates inhibited effectively the growth of five multidrug-resistant strains and one extensively drug-resistant strain of M. tuberculosis at low concentrations (0.25–2 μmol/L) regardless of the resistance patterns. The highest rate of multidrug-resistant mycobacteria inhibition expressed 4-chloro-2-[4-(trifluoromethyl)-phenylcarbamoyl]phenyl benzoate (0.25–1 μmol/L). Unfortunately, the most potent esters were still considerably cytotoxic, although mostly less than their parent salicylanilides.