Nosocomial infections, which greatly increase morbidity among hospitalized patients, together with growing antibiotic resistance still encourage many researchers to search for novel antimicrobial compounds. Picolinium salts with different lengths of alkyl chains (C12, C14, C16) were prepared by Menshutkin-like reaction and evaluated with respect to their biological activity, i.e., lipophilicity and critical micellar concentration. Picolinium salts with C14 and C16 side chains achieved similar or even better results when in terms of antimicrobial efficacy than benzalkoniums; notably, their fungicidal efficiency was substantially more potent. The position of the methyl substituent on the aromatic ring does not seem to affect antimicrobial activity, in contrast to the effect of length of the N-alkyl chain. Concurrently, picolinium salts exhibited satisfactory low cytotoxicity against mammalian cells, i.e., lower than that of benzalkonium compounds, which are considered as safe.

Biomedical Research Center University Hospital Hradec Kralove Sokolska 581 500 05 Hradec Kralove Czech Republic

Department of Biology Biotechnical Faculty University of Ljubljana Jamnikarjeva 101 1000 Ljubljana Slovenia

Department of Chemistry Faculty of Science University of Hradec Kralove Rokitanskeho 62 500 03 Hradec Kralove Czech Republic

Department of Epidemiology University of Defence in Brno Trebesska 1575 500 05 Hradec Kralove Czech Republic

Department of Genome Integrity Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Czech Academy of Sciences Videnska 1083 142 20 Prague Czech Republic

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