A new class of antimicrobial,“soft”, quaternary ammonium l-carnitine esters, of the type (CH3) 3N+-CH2-CHOCO (R1)-CH2-COO (R2) Cl-, has been designed, with R1 and R2 being in general long-chain alkyl substituents. The series shows good activity against a wide range of bacteria, yeasts, and fungi. Lipophilicity has been measured by RP-HPLC method to give the logarithm of the experimental capacity factor (log k'), and a quantitative ...
