Total Synthesis of Tunicamycin V

Development of a natural product optimization strategy for inhibitors against MraY, a promising antibacterial target

MraY (phospho-N-acetylmuramoyl-pentapeptide-transferase) inhibitory natural products are attractive molecules as candidates for a new class of antibacterial agents to combat antimicrobial-resistant bacteria. Structural optimization of these natural products is required to improve their drug-like properties for therapeutic use. However, chemical modifications of these natural products are painstaking tasks due to complex synthetic processes, which is a bottleneck in advancing natural products to the clinic. Here, we develop a strategy for a comprehensive in situ evaluation of the build-up library, which enables us to streamline the preparation of the analogue library and directly assess its biological activities. We apply this approach to a series of MraY inhibitory natural products. Through construction and evaluation of the 686-compound library, we identify promising analogues that exhibit potent and broad-spectrum antibacterial activity against highly drug-resistant strains in vitro as well as in vivo in an acute thigh infection model. Structures of the MraY-analogue complexes reveal distinct interaction patterns, suggesting that these analogues represent MraY inhibitors with unique binding modes. We further demonstrate the generality of our strategy by applying it to tubulin-binding natural products to modulate their tubulin polymerization activities.

Nucleoside analogues: N-glycosylation methodologies, synthesis of antiviral and antitumor drugs and potential against drug-resistant bacteria and Alzheimer's disease

Nucleosides have gained significant attention since the discovery of the structure of DNA. Nucleoside analogues may be synthesized through multiple synthetic pathways, however the N-glycosylation of a nucleobase is the most common method. Amongst the different classical N-glycosylation methodologies, the Vorbrüggen glycosylation is the most popular method. This review focuses on the synthesis and therapeutic applications of several FDA approved nucleoside analogues as antiviral and anticancer agents. Moreover, this review also focuses on the potential of these compounds as new antibacterial and anti-Alzheimer's disease agents, offering an overview of the most recent research in these fields.

Switchable reactivity of 2-benzoyl glycals towards stereoselective access of 1-3 and 1-1 S/O linked disaccharides

We have developed a synthesis of 1-3 and 1-1 disaccharides from 2-benzoyl glycal and anomeric thiol and/or hydroxy sugar acceptors under mild conditions at room temperature. The regio and stereo-selectivity of the newly formed inter-glycosidic linkages are dependent on the nature of the glycal donor (D or L) and anomeric acceptor.

An improved total synthesis of tunicamycin V

The tunicamycins are important biochemical tools to study N-linked glycosylation and protein misfolding in cancer biochemistry fields. We reported a convergent synthesis of tunicamycin V with 21% overall yield from D-galactal. We have further optimized our original synthetic scheme by increasing the selectivity of azidonitration of the galactal derivative and developing a one-pot Büchner-Curtius-Schlotterbeck reaction. An improved synthetic scheme reported here enables the synthesis of tunicamycin V in 33% overall yield. In this article, we describe detailed procedures for a gram-scale synthesis of the key intermediate 12 and synthesizing 100 mg of tunicamycin V (1) from commercially available D-galctal-4,5-acetonide. All chemical steps have been repeated multiple times.•Highly selective azidonitration of N-(((3aR,4R,7aR)-2,2-dimethyl-3a,7a-dihydro-4H-[1,3]dioxolo[4,5-c]pyran-4-yl)methyl)acetamide (D-galctal-4,5-acetonide) to form 2-azido-2-deoxy-α/β-D-galactopyranoside derivatives.•Optimized Büchner-Curtius-Schlotterbeck (BCS) reaction procedure for the tunicamycin core structure.•Full detail on the 15-chemical step synthesis of tunicamycin V.

Exploiting photoredox catalysis for carbohydrate modification through C–H and C–C bond activation

Photoredox catalysis has recently emerged as a powerful synthetic platform for accessing complex chemical structures through non-traditional bond disconnection strategies that proceed through free-radical intermediates. Such synthetic strategies have been used for a range of organic transformations; however, in carbohydrate chemistry they have primarily been applied to the generation of oxocarbenium ion intermediates in the ubiquitous glycosylation reaction. In this Review, we present more intricate light-induced synthetic strategies to modify native carbohydrates through homolytic C-H and C-C bond cleavage. These strategies allow access to glycans and glycoconjugates with profoundly altered carbohydrate skeletons, which are challenging to obtain through conventional synthetic means. Carbohydrate derivatives with such structural motifs represent a broad class of natural products integral to numerous biochemical processes and can be found in active pharmaceutical substances. Here we present progress made in C-H and C-C bond activation of carbohydrates through photoredox catalysis, focusing on the operational mechanisms and the scope of the described methodologies.

Concise Synthesis of Tunicamycin V and Discovery of a Cytostatic DPAGT1 Inhibitor

A short total synthesis of tunicamycin V (1), a non-selective phosphotransferase inhibitor, is achieved via a Büchner-Curtius-Schlotterbeck type reaction. Tunicamycin V can be synthesized in 15 chemical steps from D-galactal with 21 % overall yield. The established synthetic scheme is operationally very simple and flexible to introduce building blocks of interest. The inhibitory activity of one of the designed analogues 28 against human dolichyl-phosphate N-acetylglucosaminephosphotransferase 1 (DPAGT1) is 12.5 times greater than 1. While tunicamycins are cytotoxic molecules with a low selectivity, the novel analogue 28 displays selective cytostatic activity against breast cancer cell lines including a triple-negative breast cancer.

Rhenium(V)-catalyzed synthesis of 1,1'-2-deoxy thioglycosides

As stable glycomimetics, thioglycosides are important tools for the investigation of biological processes and discovery of new drugs. In this note, we report a ReOCl₃(SMe₂)(OPPh₃) catalyzed coupling reaction between β-glycosyl thiols (1-thio sugars) and glycals for the preparation of 1,1'-α,β-2-deoxy thioglycosides, which are glycomimetics of natural trehalose and 2-deoxy glycosides. Furthermore, an S-linked trisaccharide was successfully obtained by successive employment of the Re(V) catalyzed thioglycosylation protocol.

Biodiversity, Bioactivity, and Metabolites of High Desert Derived Oregonian Soil Bacteria

From arid, high desert soil samples collected near Bend, Oregon, 19 unique bacteria were isolated. Each strain was identified by 16S rRNA gene sequencing, and their organic extracts were tested for antibacterial and antiproliferative activities. Noteworthy, six extracts (30 %) exhibited strong inhibition resulting in less than 50 % cell proliferation in more than one cancer cell model, tested at 10 μg/mL. Principal component analysis (PCA) of LC/MS data revealed drastic differences in the metabolic profiles found in the organic extracts of these soil bacteria. In total, fourteen potent antibacterial and/or cytotoxic metabolites were isolated via bioactivity-guided fractionation, including two new natural products: a pyrazinone containing tetrapeptide and 7-methoxy-2,3-dimethyl-4H-chromen-4-one, as well as twelve known compounds: furanonaphthoquinone I, bafilomycin C1 and D, FD-594, oligomycin A, chloramphenicol, MY12-62A, rac-sclerone, isosclerone, tunicamycin VII, tunicamycin VIII, and (6S,16S)-anthrabenzoxocinone 1.264-C.

Natural products as modulators of eukaryotic protein secretion

Covering: up to the end of 2019Diverse natural product small molecules have allowed critical insights into processes that govern eukaryotic cells' ability to secrete cytosolically synthesized secretory proteins into their surroundings or to insert newly synthesized integral membrane proteins into the lipid bilayer of the endoplasmic reticulum. In addition, many components of the endoplasmic reticulum, required for protein homeostasis or other processes such as lipid metabolism or maintenance of calcium homeostasis, are being investigated for their potential in modulating human disease conditions such as cancer, neurodegenerative conditions and diabetes. In this review, we cover recent findings up to the end of 2019 on natural products that influence protein secretion or impact ER protein homeostasis, and serve as powerful chemical tools to understand protein flux through the mammalian secretory pathway and as leads for the discovery of new therapeutics.

Synthesis and biological evaluation of a MraY selective analogue of tunicamycins

Tunicamycins, which are nucleoside natural products, inhibit both bacterial phospho-N-acetylmuraminic acid (MurNAc)-pentapeptide translocase (MraY) and human UDP-N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc): polyprenol phosphate translocase (GPT). The improved synthesis and detailed biological evaluation of an MraY-selective inhibitor, 2, where the GlcNAc moiety was modified to a MurNAc amide, has been described.

Facile Synthesis of Sugar Lactols via Bromine-Mediated Oxidation of Thioglycosides

Synthesis of a variety of sugar lactols (hemiacetals) has been accomplished in moderate to excellent yields by using bromine-mediated oxidation of thioglycosides. It was found that acetonitrile is the optimal solvent for this oxidation reaction. This approach involving bromine as oxidant is superior to that using N-bromosuccimide (NBS) which produces byproduct succinimide often difficult to separate from the lactol products.

Tunicamycin: chemical synthesis and biosynthesis

Tunicamycins are nucleoside natural products and show antibacterial, antiviral and antitumor activities, which are attributed to their inhibition of enzymatic reactions between polyisoprenyl phosphate and UDP-GlcNAc or UDP-MurNAc-pentapeptide. Because of their various intriguing biological activities, tunicamycins have potential as therapeutic agents for infectious diseases or cancers. Structurally, tunicamycins have a unique structure composed of an undecodialdose skeleton, a lipid chain and a GlcNAc fragment linked by a 1,1-β,α-trehalose-type glycosidic bond. In this mini review, we summarize the total chemical syntheses and biosynthetic studies of tunicamycins.

Total Synthesis of Caprazamycin A: Practical and Scalable Synthesis of syn-β-Hydroxyamino Acids and Introduction of a Fatty Acid Side Chain to 1,4-Diazepanone

The first total synthesis of caprazamycin A (1), a representative liponucleoside antibiotic, is described. Diastereoselective aldol reactions of aldehydes 12 and 25-27, derived from uridine, with diethyl isocyanomalonate 13 and phenylcarbamate 21 were investigated using thiourea catalysts 14 or bases to synthesize syn-β-hydroxyamino acid derivatives. The 1,4-diazepanone core of 1 was constructed using a Mitsunobu reaction, and the fatty acid side chain was introduced using a stepwise sequence based on model studies. Notably, global deprotection was realized using palladium black and formic acid without hydrogenating the olefin in the uridine unit.

GlcNAc-1-P-transferase-tunicamycin complex structure reveals basis for inhibition of N-glycosylation

N-linked glycosylation is a predominant post-translational modification of protein in eukaryotes, and its dysregulation is the etiology of several human disorders. The enzyme UDP-N-acetylglucosamine:dolichyl-phosphate N-acetylglucosaminephosphotransferase (GlcNAc-1-P-transferase, GPT) catalyzes the first and committed step of N-linked glycosylation in the endoplasmic reticulum membrane, and it is the target of the natural product tunicamycin. Tunicamycin has potent antibacterial activity by inhibiting the bacterial cell wall synthesis enzyme MraY, but its usefulness as an antibiotic is limited by off-target inhibition of human GPT. Our understanding of how tunicamycin inhibits N-linked glycosylation and efforts to selectively target MraY are hampered by a lack of structural information. Here we present crystal structures of human GPT in complex with tunicamycin. Our structural and functional analyses reveal the difference between GPT and MraY in their mechanisms of inhibition by tunicamycin. We demonstrate that this difference could be exploited for the design of MraY-specific inhibitors as potential antibiotics.