Bioisosteric modification of flavaglines

Abstract

Flavaglines represent a class of potent anticancer agents. Herein, we demonstrated that a classical strategy in pharmacomodulation, i.e. the isosteric replacement of an alcohol by an acylamino or a mesylamino moiety leads to inactive compounds. In addition, the development of a convenient method to introduce an azide on the cyclopenta[b]benzofuran skeleton of these compounds was achieved using a cyclic sulfite intermediate.