Ethambutol is a primary antibiotic used to treat tuberculosis (TB), the most deadly infectious disease worldwide. However, ethambutol has some serious side-effects, including liver damage and inflammation of the optic nerves. Conversion of ethambutol to an ester-protected prodrug could alleviate some of these side-effects and could increase the specificity of the drug for M. tuberculosis. Ten ester-protected ethambutol derivatives were synthesized to determine the toxicity, chemical properties, and biological functions of each derivative.The ability of each ester-protected derivative to act as prodrug was analyzed. The results of this project provide new insight on how the chemical and biological properties of antibiotics affect their toxicity against TB.

Ester-protected ethambutol derivatives

256th National Meeting (2018)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.