Design, synthesis and anti-mycobacterial activity of 1,2,3,5-tetrasubstituted pyrrolyl-N-acetic acid derivatives.

A novel synthesis of highly substituted pyrrole-N-acetic derivatives is described through the coupling of 1,4-diketones with amino acids following Paal-Knorr's approach. These pyrrole-N-acetic acid derivatives are found to exhibit potent anti-mycobacterial activity against Mycobacterium smegmatis and Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain H37Rv. In particular, 5n, 5q &5r are found to display excellent anti-mycobacterial activity against M. tuberculosis strain H37Rv with MIC values in the range of 2.97 µM. Conversely, these compounds showed low cytotoxicity (selectivity index: >16.83) against HEK-293T cell line.