Derivatives of the diterpenoid isosteviol (16-oxo-ent-beyeran-19-oic acid) with azine, hydrazone, and hydrazide moieties were synthesized. They exhibited high tuberculostatic activity in vitro against the strain Mycobacterium tuberculosis H 37 R V (minimum inhibiting concentration in the range 6.3-1.7 Pg/mL).Only streptomycin, capreomycin, and kanamycin of all drugs used today for tuberculosis chemotherapy are isolated from natural sources [1]. All other tuberculosis drugs [1] and agents undergoing preclinical and clinical trials [2, 3] are products from organic syntheses. Nevertheless, over 50 metabolites of various structures that inhibit the growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in the range of minimum inhibiting concentrations (MIC) 60-3 Pg/mL have currently been isolated from natural plant sources [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Diterpenoids [4,5,[8][9][10][11][12][13] and triterpenoids [4,5,11,[14][15][16][17] are most widely represented among them. The diterpenoid isosteviol (16-oxo-ent-beyeran-19-oic acid) (1) also exhibits moderate antituberculosis activity (MIC = 50 Pg/mL). Our group has investigated for several years chemical modification of 1 and its derivatives in which two isosteviol molecules are linked by a polymethylene spacer with C 16 atoms [18]. It was found that the length of the spacer affects considerably the activity. Increasing the number of methylenes in the spacer from one to eight decreases MIC from 25 to 12.5 Pg/mL [18]. These results were unusual because 1, its bis-derivatives [18], and the aforementioned di-and triterpenoids of different structures [4,5,[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] are not nitrogenous organic compounds yet they exhibit antituberculosis activity at the level of the N-containing antituberculosis drug pyrazinamide (MIC = 12.5 Pg/mL) [19,20]. This is probably evidence that they have a different mechanism of M. tuberculosis growth inhibition. It seemed interesting to determine how the introduction of pharmacophoric N-containing moieties (hydrazide and hydrazone) into 1 and its bis-derivatives [18] affects their antituberculosis activity.For this we reacted 1 and its acid chloride 4 with hydrazine hydrate and adipic acid hydrazide (Scheme 1) and studied the ability of the resulting products to inhibit the growth of M. tuberculosis.The reaction of 1 and an excess of hydrazine hydrate in MeOH gave not isosteviol hydrazone (3) but the azine 2, which was isolated as the salt (Scheme 1). The reason for this was probably that hydrazone 3 formed and reacted with both starting 1 and that formed via hydrolysis of 3. Compound 3 was obtained pure via reaction of 1 with a 10-fold excess of anhydrous hydrazine.The reaction of isosteviol acid chloride 4 with anhydrous hydrazine in CCl 4 produced 5. Its PMR spectrum showed characteristic resonances for protons of the ent-beyerane skeleton in addition to a broad singlet of the hydrazide amine at 3.83 ppm, a broad singlet of the hydrazone amine at 4.75, and a singlet of the hydrazide amide at 6.9. The reactio...