Synthesis and antitumor activities of aquayamycin and analogues of derhodinosylurdamycin A.

Total syntheses of aquayamycin (3) and a number of analogues of angucycline antitumor antibiotic derhodinosylurdamycin A bearing various 2-deoxy sugar subunits (4-7) have been achieved. These molecules (3-7) were synthesized based on a convergent strategy for the synthesis of derhodinosylurdamycin A (2) previously reported from our group. In particular, our recently developed mild cationic gold-catalyzed glycosylation with S-but-3-ynyl thioglycoside donors was employed for the synthesis of analogues (6 and 7) bearing disaccharide subunits containing α-l-olivoside and α-l-olioside moiety, respectively. Aquayamycin (3), analogues (4-7), and our previously synthesized derhodinosylurdamycin A (2) were then submitted to the Development Therapeutics Program of the National Cancer Institute of National Institutes of Health for the NCI-60 Human Tumor Cell Lines Screening using standard protocols. It was found that derhodinosylurdamycin A (2), aquayamycin (3), and three other analogues (5-7) bearing sugar subunits did not show significant antiproliferative activity against those cancer cell lines. Interestingly, analogue (4) bearing no sugar subunit demonstrates good potential for growth inhibition and cytotoxic activity against a variety of human cancer cell lines.