Exploring the catalytic diversity of two short-chain dehydrogenases/reductases from .

Short-chain dehydrogenase/reductases (SDRs) belong to the NAD(P)(H)-dependent oxidoreductase superfamily, which have various functions of catalyzing oxidation/reduction reactions and have been generally used as powerful biocatalysts in the production of pharmaceuticals. In this study, ScSDR1 and ScSDR2, two new SDRs have been identified and characterized from 3.5365.

Design, Synthesis, and Cytotoxic Analysis of Novel Hederagenin⁻Pyrazine Derivatives Based on Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis.

Hederagenin () is a novel triterpene template for the development of new antitumor compounds. In this study, 26 new ⁻pyrazine derivatives were synthetized in an attempt to develop potent antitumor agents; they were screened for in vitro cytotoxicity against tumor and non-tumor cell lines The majority of these derivatives showed much stronger cytotoxic activity than . Remarkably, the most potent was compound (half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC) was 3.

Combination of amino acid/dipeptide with ligustrazine-betulinic acid as antitumor agents.

The lead compound TBA, 3β-Hydroxy-lup-20(29)-ene-28-oic acid-3, 5, 6-trimethylpyrazin-2-methyl ester, which exhibited promising antitumor activity and induced tumor cell apoptosis in various cancer cell lines, had previously been reported. Moreover, reports have revealed that the introduction of amino acid to betulinic acid could improve selective cytotoxicity as well as water solubility. Thus, a series of novel TBA amino acid and dipeptide derivatives were designed, synthesized and screened for selective cytotoxic activity against five cancer cell lines (HepG2, HT-29, Hela, BCG-823 and A549) and the not malignant cell line MDCK by standard MTT assay.