Synthesis, Antimicrobial Activities of New Sulfonamidobenzoxazoles and Molecular Docking Studies on Escherichia coli TEM-1 β-Lactamase

β-Lactam antibiotics are frequently used for treatment of multi-drug resistant microbial infections and the most common mechanism of resistance against these antibiotics is bacterial β-lactamase production. Herein, we reported the design, synthesis and in vitro antimicrobial activities of some new 2-substituted-5-(2,4-dinitrophenylsulfonamido)benzoxazole derivatives. Compounds TN1, TN2, and TN3 were found to be significantly active against E. coli isolate which contains extended spectrum β-lactamase enzyme at the MIC value of 8 μg mL–1 and that is 4-fold higher than the reference drug ampicillin. We performed molecular docking studies into active site of Escherichia coli TEM-1 β-lactamase enzyme in order to predict the protein-ligand interactions. According to the docking results, compounds TN1, TN2, and TN3 showed strong interactions between the important active site residues which are responsible for the catalytic mechanism of TEM-1 β-lactamase enzyme and a good correlation is found with the experimental data.