Studies with Plant Cell Cultures of the Chinese Herbal Plant, Tripterygium wilfordii. Synthesis and Biotransformation of Diterpene Analogues

Abstract

Synthetic routes to a series of diterpene analogues from dehydroabietic acid (1) are presented.These synthetic compounds are then utilized as substrates in biotransformation experiments with the cells of a stable cell line (coded as TRP4a) of the Chinese herbal plant, Tripterygiwn wilfordii.The enzyme-catalyzed conversions of the substrate, isotriptophenolide (12), afford a series of novel diterpene analogues to be evaluated in pharmacological screening programs as antineoplastic and immunosuppressive agents.Of particular interest are the quinone epoxides ( 14) and ( 15) for comparison with the highly diterpene triepoxides, triptolide and tripdiolide.Some screening data obtained with the latter compounds and relating to their anticancer and immunosuppressive activity are also presented.