FIG 1.

The chronology of the quinolones (1949 to the present). The top side of the temporal line indicates the years of discovery/synthesis of a series of representative quinolones. In all cases, the year of the most ancient report found in the literature is reported. Note that although several thousand quinolones have been synthetized and their anti-infective potential has been explored, only a selection is presented. Furthermore, no quinolone without a “specific” name has been included (because in the vast majority of cases, their development was discontinued), leading to a lower number of quinolones from ∼2010 onward, as most are in the first stages of development (for instance, DS-8587 or KPI-10 [both of which are described in articles from 2013 {452, 453}]). The bottom side of the temporal line indicates a series of milestones in the history of quinolones. ¹, fluoroquinolone-oxazolidone hybrid molecule (43).