Synthesis and biological evaluation of penem inhibitors of bacterial signal peptidase.

We report the first synthesis of a 5S penem, known to bind bacterial type I signal peptidase, from the commercially available and inexpensive 6-aminopenicillanic acid. We report the first in vivo activity of the compound and use structure-activity relationship studies to begin to define the determinants of signal peptidase binding and also to begin to optimize the penem as an antibiotic.