the present invention pertains to the combinatorial synthesis of antibacterial agents that inhibit the mur - pathway enzymes involved in bacterial cell wall assembly . the method uses p - alkoxybenzylidene as the linker for the attachment of a derivatized muramic acid to the polymeric resin support . this intermediate becomes the starting point for the combinatorial synthesis , which in conjunction with split - pooling techniques allows rapid synthesis of diverse analogues for high - throughput screening . the invention is further directed to the libraries of these finished compounds that vary at the peptide , n - acyl and anomeric udp positions .