New hydrazides derivatives of isoniazid against Mycobacterium tuberculosis: Higher potency and lower hepatocytotoxicity.

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. The emergence of multi-drug resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) and TB-HIV co-infection are major public health challenges. The anti-TB drugs of first choice were developed more than 4 decades ago and present several adverse effects, making the treatment of TB even more complicated and the development of new chemotherapeutics for this disease imperative. In this work, we synthesized two series of new acylhydrazides and evaluated their activity against different strains of Mtb. Derivatives of isoniazid (INH) showed important anti-Mtb activity, some being more potent than all anti-TB drugs of first choice. Moreover, three compounds proved to be more potent than INH against resistant Mtb. The Ames test showed favorable results for two of these substances compared to INH, one of which presented expressly lower toxicity to HepG2 cells than that of INH. This result shows that this compound has the potential to overcome one of the main adverse effects of this drug.