Las enfermedades infecciosas y la creciente amenaza de pandemias en todo el mundo han puesto de relieve la importancia de la higiene y los antibi\u00f3ticos. Intensos esfuerzos se han dedicado a la busqueda de nuevos antibi\u00f3ticos para satisfacer la creciente demanda. En particular, se trata de avanzar en el conocimiento de la relaci\u00f3n estructura \u2013 propiedades \u2013 actividad. Esta relaci\u00f3n es fundamental para acelerar el dise\u00f1o y desarrollo de nuevas sustancias antimicrobianas con el potencial y eficacia necesarios.<\/p>\n
Infectious diseases and the increasing threat of worldwide pandemics have underscored the importance of antibiotics and hygiene. Intensive efforts have been devoted to developing new antibiotics to meet the rapidly growing demand. In particular, advancing the knowledge of the structure\u2013property\u2013activity relationship is critical to expedite the design and development of novel antimicrobial with the needed potential and efficacy. Herein, a series of new antimicrobial imidazolium oligomers are developed with the rational manipulation of terminal group’s hydrophobicity. These materials exhibit superior activity, excellent selectivity, ultrafast killing (>99.7% killing within 30 s), and desirable self-gelling properties. Molecular dynamic simulations reveal the delicate effect of structural changes on the translocation motion across the microbial cell membrane. The energy barrier of the translocation process analyzed by free energy calculations provides clear kinetic information to suggest that the spontaneous penetration requires a very short timescale of seconds to minutes for the new imidazolium oligomers.<\/p>\n