Novel isoquinoline derivatives as antimicrobial agents.

The wide variety of potent biological activities of natural and synthetic isoquinoline alkaloids encouraged us to develop novel antimicrobial isoquinoline compounds. We synthesized a variety of differently functionalized 1-pentyl-6,7-dimethoxy-1,2,3,4-tetrahydroisoquinolines (THIQs), including dihydroisoquinolinium salts (2 and 5), methyl pentanoate-THIQ (6), 1-pentanol-THIQ (7), ester derivatives (8-15) and carbamate derivatives (16-23). We employed classic intramolecular Bischler-Napieralski cyclodehydration to generate the isoquinoline core. All the structures were characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry. The bactericide and fungicide activities were evaluated f…