Hit compound 21 and its analogues (54, 107) were found to bind close to hit compound 20 and its analogue 56 with the aliphatic tail of the hit 21 series overlapping with the aromatic ring of the hit 20 series (Figure ). Therefore, it appeared attractive to pursue a merging strategy to obtain compounds containing different scaffolds. For that purpose, the Molport database was screened for orthohalogenated benzoic acids that could form interactions with FabF as found for hit 20 and 21 and their analogues. We identified 7 different commercially available compounds that were purchased and tested using both BLI and X-ray crystallography (Table ). Of these 7 compounds, binding in X-ray crystallography could only be detected for 113 (Figure and, Figure ) and the binding mode of 113 was as intended in the design process (Figure ). The aromatic ring overlapped with the benzene ring of 56 and the nitrogen atom in the pyrrole ring was positioned close to where one of the nitrogen atoms in the pyrazole ring of 21 was positioned, establishing water-bridged hydrogen bonds in a similar manner as found for the hit compound. In the BLI assay this compound showed super-stoichiometric binding (Table ) as seen for all ortho halogenated benzoic acids tested (Table -Table ).