The (+)-Brevipolide H Displays Anticancer Activity against Human Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer: The Role of Oxidative Stress and Akt/mTOR/p70S6K-Dependent Pathways in G1 Checkpoint Arrest and Apoptosis

Combining Activity Profiling with Advanced Annotation to Accelerate the Discovery of Natural Products Targeting Oncogenic Signaling in Melanoma

The discovery of bioactive natural products remains a time-consuming and challenging task. The ability to link high-confidence metabolite annotations in crude extracts with activity would be highly beneficial to the drug discovery process. To address this challenge, HPLC-based activity profiling and advanced UHPLC-HRMS/MS metabolite profiling for annotation were combined to leverage the information obtained from both approaches on a crude extract scaled down to the submilligram level. This strategy was applied to a subset of an extract library screening aiming to identify natural products inhibiting oncogenic signaling in melanoma. Advanced annotation and data organization enabled the identification of compounds that were likely responsible for the activity in the extracts. These compounds belonged to two different natural product scaffolds, namely, brevipolides from a Hyptis brevipes extract and methoxylated flavonoids identified in three different extracts of Hyptis and Artemisia spp. Targeted isolation of these prioritized compounds led to five brevipolides and seven methoxylated flavonoids. Brevipolide A (1) and 6-methoxytricin (9) were the most potent compounds from each chemical class and displayed AKT activity inhibition with an IC₅₀ of 17.6 ± 1.6 and 4.9 ± 0.2 μM, respectively.

Chiron approach for the total synthesis of brevipolide M

An efficient stereoselective synthesis of brevipolide M was established in 13 linear steps and 17.8% overall yields base on chiron approach. The key steps of our synthesis involved tandem homologation / tetrahydrofuran cyclization and sequential ring-closing metathesis (RCM) / double-bond migration in one-pot processes.

Stereoselective Total Synthesis of (+)-Brevipolide H from d-Galactal

An efficient and concise synthesis of cytotoxic 5,6-dihydro-α-pyrone (+)-brevipolide H has been accomplished in 12 long linear steps in 8.65% overall yield from readily available chiral synthons, d-galactal and ethyl l-lactate. The features of this synthesis are highly diastereoselective Simmons–Smith cyclopropanation and carbohydrate-based chiron approach to rapid access to key 5,6-dihydro-α-pyrone skeleton.

Strategies for the synthesis of brevipolides

In recent years fifteen 5,6-dihydro-α-pyrone derivatives, bearing either a distinctive cyclopropane or furan ring and named brevipolides A–O (1–15), have been isolated from the invasive plant Hyptis brevipes Poit. Their fascinating structural features, and the potent biological activities, including cytotoxicity against an array of human cancer cell lines and inhibition of the chemokine receptor CCR5, make them attractive synthetic targets. This review article highlights the recent synthetic methodologies and briefly summarizes their biological activities.