Diastereoselective three-component vinylogous Mannich reaction of nitrogen heterocycles, acyl/sulfonyl chlorides, and silyloxyfurans/pyrroles.

A one-step, 3-component vinylogous Mannich reaction of trimethylsilyloxyfuran or N-protected tert-butyldimethylsilyloxypyrrole with a variety of nitrogen-containing heterocycles in the presence of diverse electrophiles is described. The reaction products were generally obtained in high yields and as a single diastereoisomer having the (R*,R*) relative configuration based on crystallographic studies of several derivatives. Several azaheterocycles were successfully used for this reaction, such as isoquinolines, quinoline, phenanthridine, quinazoline, phthalazine, and ß-carboline, and electrophiles included acetyl chloride, methyl chloroformate, methyl chloromalonate, 2-bromobutanoyl chloride, and arylsulfonyl chlorides. The products of the vinylogous Mannich reactions were subjected to further transformations, leading to highly functionalized and stereochemically defined tetracyclic derivatives that are valuable building blocks for the preparation of natural products or medicinal agents.

Total synthesis and absolute configuration of the natural amino acid tetrahydrolathyrine.

The natural product tetrahydrolathyrine has been synthesized through an iminoiodane-mediated aziridination of a (2S)-allylglycinol derivative, which provided a 2:3 mixture of diastereoisomers. One of these diastereoisomers was converted to the natural product and the other to its C-4 epimer. The C-4 configuration was established from NOESY NMR analysis and X-ray structure of compounds derived from the non-natural diastereoisomer. Thus, tetrahydrolathyrine was shown to have the (2S,4R) absolute configuration.

Synthesis of chimeric tetrapeptide-linked cholic acid derivatives: impending synergistic agents.

Tetrapeptides derived from glycine and beta-alanine were hooked at the C-3beta position of the modified cholic acid to realize novel linear tetrapeptide-linked cholic acid derivatives. All the synthesized compounds were tested against a wide variety of microorganisms (gram-negative bacteria, gram-positive bacteria and fungi) and their cytotoxicity was evaluated against human embryonic kidney (HEK293) and human mammary adenocarcinoma (MCF-7) cell lines. While relatively inactive by themselves, these compounds interact synergistically with antibiotics such as fluconazole and erythromycin to inhibit growth of fungi and bacteria, respectively, at 1-24 microg/mL. The synergistic effect shown by our novel compounds is due to their inherent amphiphilicity. The fractional inhibitory concentrations reported are comparable to those reported for Polymyxin B derivatives.

Usefulness of PKH fluorescent labelling to study leukemic cell proliferation with various cytostatic drugs or acetyl tetrapeptide--AcSDKP.

BACKGROUND: PKH67 labelling was compared for classical proliferation assessment (using S phase evaluation) to analyse the cell proliferation of 29 AML patients treated or not with various drugs. Among these drugs, the effect of tetrapeptide AcSDKP or AcSDKP-NH2 on AML cells, stimulated or not by cytokines, was also evaluated in order to determine (i) if AcSDKP was able to inhibit blast cell proliferation as it inhibits haematopoietic progenitors (ii) if AcSDKP-NH2 was more stable than AcSDKP with FBS. METHODS: For PKH labeling, cells were suspended in Diluent C, and rapidly admixed with PKH67 solution at 20 microM PKH67. Staining was stopped by addition of FBS. RESULTS: A good correlation between PKH67 labelling and bromodeoxyuridine incorporation was obtained first with 6/9 patients for control cells, then for 11/17 AML patients treated with classical antileukemic drugs (among whom 4 were also treated with AcSDKP). The effect of AcSDKP was also studied on 7 patients. The discrepancy between both methods was essentially due to an accumulation of cells into different cycle phases measured by BrdUrd incorporation secondary to drug action and PKH67 labelling which measured the dynamic proliferation. This last method allows identifying resistant cells which still proliferate. AcSDKP or AcSDKP-NH2 induced a decrease of leukemic cell proliferation in 5/7 patients when cytokines were added (in order to stimulate proliferation) one day after tetrapeptide AcSDKP or AcSDKP-NH2. No effect on proliferation was noted when cytokines were added to AcSDKP-NH2. CONCLUSION: PKH67 labelling method is a powerful tool for cell proliferation assessment in patients with AML, even in cells treated by various drugs.