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Abstract

According to the Health World Organization, Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Pae) is a multi-drug resistant bacteria urgently needing new antibiotics. Pae infections are particularly common in cystic fibrosis patients, due to their immunocompromised status. The ability of this bacteria to infect this vulnerable population lies in its capacity to form biofilms with a self-produced matrix of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). Previous research on biofilm formation of several gram-negative bacteria, including Pae, concluded that D-leucine, D-methionine, D-tyrosine, and D-tryptophan were produced to inhibit biofilm formation. Based on these early findings, the Drug Distributed Discovery (D3) project, which purpose is to inexpensively synthesize compounds to treat neglected diseases from the developing world, repeated these experiments to finally conclude that only L-amino acids caused a reduction in Pae biofilm formation. More than 150 pro-drug formulations were synthesized for further testing, due to concerns regarding selective toxicity. In this research paper, I investigated the selective toxicity of two fluorinated dipeptides from the D3 project, against Pae strain 14 (PA14). After conducting biofilm and cell viability assays of increasing concentrations of selected compounds, it was determined that these compounds do exhibit selective toxicity against PA14 in vitro.

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