Mitigating Antimicrobial Resistance through Strategic Design of Multimodal Antibacterial Agents Based on 1,2,3-Triazole with Click Chemistry.

Drug-resistant bacterial infections impose a major threat to human health, as current antibiotic treatments are becoming increasingly ineffective. Priority has been given to the development of alternative medications to curb the development of resistance or agents that can work on the resistance strains. Among various promising approaches, 1,2,3-triazole-based molecular hybrids have emerged as excellent candidates owing to their ease of synthesis, high structural diversity, functional tunability, and biocompatibility. The rapid advancement of biological understanding of 1,2,3-triazole has been greatly aided by the discovery of the Click reaction. Drugs with a single molecular target often fail to kill the bacteria effectively, and even if they do, the bacteria eventually become resistant by virtue of mutations or other mechanisms. In this context, the 1,2,3-triazole group has been explored to design novel molecular hybrids to combat antimicrobial resistance in an effective manner. Different types of 1,2,3-triazole-based hybrids have been developed that have shown inhibitory effects on critical bacterial enzymes, the ability to produce intracellular reactive oxygen species, and the ability to disrupt the cell membrane. Herein, we discuss the strategic design principles of triazole-based hybrids, their antibacterial potential, especially focusing on the drug resistance issue, and future perspectives to critically assess their potential for multitargeting antibacterial agents. The presented information can lead to the development of novel multifaceted antibacterial agents in the future by means of their unique chemical features to address the growing challenge of drug resistance.