An amphiphile is a compound that has both hydrophilic and lipophilic components. As a result, many amphiphiles are soluble in both polar and non-polar solvents. In this project, we synthesize triscationic amphiphiles in an effort to effectively kill pathogenic bacteria. The architecture of our amphiphiles is similar to that of phospholipids in bacterial membranes. This similarity allows the synthetic amphiphiles to incorporate into, and effectively disrupt the packing of molecules in a bacterial membrane. We have prepared several series of triscationic amphiphiles, including those with one or three non-polar tails of varying lengths. We used 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopy, High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry (HRMS), and melting point to confirm the identity and purity of the amphiphiles in this study. We also used several colloidal techniques (conductivity and 1H NMR) to study aggregation of these amphiphiles in water.

Novel antibacterial triscationic amphiphiles as medical grade disinfectants

ACS Spring 2022

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