The minimum inhibitory concentrations of compounds 3, 5–9

and the reference antibiotics were determined using the method of Akinpelu and Kolawole.15 Anthranilamide (3) was reacted with 1 mol equivalent of each of phthalic anhydride, succinic anhydride, oxalic acid and 1-acetyl isatin, using ethanol as solvent under microwave irradiation to give different products in moderate to high yields. The reaction of 3 with phthalic anhydride gave compound 5, a product with an ester functional group and with physical and spectroscopic properties that are totally different from those of compound 4 obtained by Kurihara under conventional heating11 (Scheme 1). Compound 3 reacted with succinic anhydride to give the quinazolinone-propanoic Selleckchem BIBW2992 acid derivative 6 as expected. Attempted reaction of 3,5-dibromo-anthranilamide 9, obtained via bromination of 3, with phthalic anhydride was unsuccessful. The reaction of anthranilamide with phthalic and

succinic anhydrides involves a nucleophilic attack on the anhydride learn more leading to a ring-opened intermediate, which then cyclizes to afford the respective products. Condensation of anthranilamide with oxalic acid afforded compound 8. N-Acetylisatin is known to react with nucleophiles to give ring-opened products. 16 Since anthranilamide reacts with carboxylic acid anhydrides via ring-opening, the reaction of anthranilamide with N-acetylisatin was investigated. In ethanol, the N-acetylisatin from ring opens to afford ethyl 2-(2-acetamidophenyl)-2-oxoacetate, which then reacts with anthranilamide. The condensation reaction produced a benzo[1,4]diazepin derivative 7, instead of the quinazolinone derivative 10. The products were characterized by IR, NMR and mass spectra. All synthesized compounds were screened for their antibacterial activity using the agar-well diffusion method. Compounds were

screened in-vitro for possible antibacterial activity against thirteen Gram positive and eleven Gram negative bacteria, using the agar-well diffusion method. The sensitivity testing (with inhibition zones in mm) of the compounds 3, 5–9 (at 1 mg/ml) and both streptomycin and tetracycline (reference clinical antibiotics at 1 mg/ml) showed that these compounds exhibited some measure of broad spectrum activity against the bacterial strains, with zones of inhibition ranging from 10 to 30 mm. The lowest concentrations that completely inhibited the growth of organism (MIC values) for compounds 3, 5–9 and the reference antibiotics are presented in Table 1. The synthesized compounds generally showed inhibition of bacterial growth at concentrations comparable with those of the reference antibiotics and in several cases some of the compounds were active at lower concentrations. For example, compound 7 showed an MIC value of 62.5 μg/ml for seventeen of the twenty four bacterial strains, 31.3 μg/ml for two and a value of 15.7 μg/ml for Escherichia coli.