Synthesis of Imidazolium Oligomers with Planar and Stereo Cores and Their Antimicrobial Applications.

A series of imidazolium oligomers with novel planar and stereo core structures were designed and synthesized. These compounds have symmetric structures with different cores, tails, and linkers. These new imidazolium oligomers demonstrated a desirable set of bioactivities against four types of clinically relevant microbes including E. coli, S. aureus, P. aeruginosa, and C. albicans. The planar oligomers with three di-imidazolium arms and n-octyl tails showed good antimicrobial activity and biocompatibility. Oligomers with ortho-xylylene linkers exhibited higher antimicrobial activity and higher hemolytic ability than those oligomers with para-xylylene linkers. These results shed light on the structure-property relationships of synthetic polymeric antimicrobial agents.