SYNTHESIS AND STRUCTURE-ACTIVITY-RELATIONSHIPS OF SIDE-CHAIN-SUBSTITUTED ANALOGS OF THE ALLYLAMINE ANTIMYCOTIC TERBINAFINE LACKING THE CENTRAL AMINO FUNCTION

Terbinafine is a therapeutically used inhibitor of fungal squalene epoxidase that has prompted extensive derivatization programs for structure-activity relationship studies. In the present study, derivatives of terbinafine were synthesized that lack the central tertiary amino group but have polar substituents at the tert-butyl residue of the side chain. Evaluation of the antifungal potential revealed that representatives of this novel structural type can also exhibit broad antifungal activity, indicating that the central amino function of allylamine antimycotics is not essential for inhibition of fungal growth. Potency appears to correlate with the polarity of the introduced functional groups, while broad antifungal activity seems to be restricted to compounds with basic substituents. The dimethylamino-substituted ''carba-analog'' of terbinafine (8k) showed the best antimycotic profile within the whole series.