The first total synthesis of the marine acetylenic alcohol, lembehyne B - a selective inducer of early apoptosis in leukemia cancer cells.

The communication reports a new stereoselective method for the synthesis of a natural acetylenic alcohol, lembehyne B. The key stage of the process uses new cross-cyclomagnesiation reaction of aliphatic and oxygenated 1,2-dienes with Grignard reagents in the presence of a catalytic amount of CpTiCl. A study of the cytotoxic properties of lembehyne B on tumor cell lines using flow cytometry demonstrated that this is a selective inducer of early apoptosis of the Jurkat, HL-60 and K562 cell cultures and hypodiploid (sub-G1) sub-population inducer in cell cycle studies for all cell lines used.