In an attempt to find a new class antibacterial agents, a series of biscoumarins (1–4) and dihydropyrans (5–13) were successfully prepared. The molecular structures of four representative compounds, that is, 4, 5, 8 and 12 were confirmed by single crystal X-ray diffraction study. These synthesized compounds were screened for their antibacterial activity in vitro against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus ATCC 29213), methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA XJ 75302), vancomycin-intermediate S. aureus (Mu50 ATCC 700699), USA 300 (Los Angeles County clone, LAC), Staphylococcus epidermidis (S. epidermidis ATCC 14990), methicillin-resistant S. epidermidis (MRSE XJ 75284) and Escherichia coli (E. coli ATCC 25922). Additionally, there are two classical intramolecular O–H···O hydrogen bonds (HBs) in biscoumarins 1–4 and the corresponding HB energies were further performed with the density functional theory (DFT) [B3LYP/6-31G*] method.

A novel series of biscoumarin (1–4) and dihydropyran (5–13) derivatives were synthesized via a one-pot multicomponent condensation reaction and evaluated for antibacterial and antitumor activity in vitro. The X-ray crystal structure analysis of four representative compounds, 3, 7, 9 and 11, confirmed the structures of these compounds. Compounds 1–4 showed the most potent antitumor activity among the total 13 derivatives; especially for compounds 1 and 2, they also emerged as promising antibacterial members with better antibacterial activity. In addition, the results of density functional theory (DFT) showed that compared with compounds 3 and 4, biscoumarins 1 and 2 had lower intramolecular hydrogen bonds (HB) energy in their structures.

Solvothermal reactions of Zn(NO3)2·6H2O, H3tci, and biimpy generated a new ZnII coordination polymer namely [Zn3(tci)2(biimpy)]n·2n(DMF) (1 H3tci = tri(2-carboxyethyl)isocyanurate, biimpy = 2,6-bis(1-imdazoly)pyridine, DMF = N,N-dimethylformamide). Single-Crystal X-ray diffraction analysis reveals that compound 1 features a 2-fold interpenetrated 3D pillar-layered framework based on trinuclear [Zn3(COO)6] cluster subunits. Topological analysis reveals that compound 1 represents a 2-fold interpenetrated (3,8)-connected tfz-d topological network with the point symbol of {43}2{46.618.84}. The luminescence properties of compound 1 dispersed in different organic solvents were systematically investigated. The results indicated that compound 1 can be used as a candidate for selective sensing of CCl4 via a luminescence quenching mechanism.

C₂₄H₂₂N₂O₃, monoclinic, C2/c (no. 15), a = 30.130(8) Å, b = 8.825(2) Å, c = 16.021(4) Å, β = 103.293(4)°, V = 4145.8(18) ų, Z = 8, R _gt (F) = 0.0445, wR _ref (F²) = 0.1258, T = 293 K.