Synthesis and in vitro biological evaluation of novel dendrocandin analogue as potential anti-tumor agent.

Dendrocandins are characteristic chemical structures of D. officinale and have strong physiological bioactivities. In this study, a dendrocandin analogue (1) has been prepared by total synthesis (9 steps, 12.6% overall yield) in which coupling reaction and Wittig reaction as the key steps. Compound 1 was also evaluated for its anticancer activity in vitro against six human cancer cells (MCF-7, A549, A431, SW480, HepG-2 and HL-60) using MTT assays. Compound showed potent cytotoxicity, with the IC50 value 16.27 ± 0.26 µM. The expression levels of apoptotic proteins indicated that compound can up-regulate the expression of apoptotic proteins, leading to apoptosis. This compound suggested that it's potential as anticancer agent for further development.