Synthesis and cytotoxic screening of beta-boswellic acid derivatives

Abstract

<jats:p>Beta-boswellic acids are triterpenoids being generic to the plants of genus boswellia. Although they were shown to exhibit different biological activities, the cytotoxic potential of b-boswellic acid derivatives remained by and large unexploited. To expand the potential of these compounds we developed simple procedures for the interconversion of the most important b-boswellic acids 1-4 and prepared several other derivatives 5-48. These compounds were screened for their cytotoxic activity in sulforhodamine B assays employing several human tumor cell lines and nonmalignant mouse fibroblasts. One of these compounds, a difluoromethylester of 3-O-acetyl-11-keto-beta-boswellic acid 23, was cytotoxic for human breast adenocarcinoma cells MCF-7 (EC50 = 6.5 mM) while being significantly less cytotoxic for the mouse fibroblasts.</jats:p>

Synthesis of new boswellic acid derivatives as potential antiproliferative agents

“…Frankincense was provided by commercial supplier and compound 2 was prepared from frankincense according to Jauch's procedure (Jauch and Bergmann, 2003). The interconversion of compounds 1-4 followed our previously published procedures (Wolfram et al, 2017). (3α,4β) Compound 5 was prepared as previously reported; mp: 201-204 °C (Csuk et al, 2015).…”

Chemical, molecular and structural studies of Boswellia species: β-Boswellic Aldehyde and 3-epi-11β-Dihydroxy BA as precursors in biosynthesis of boswellic acids

“…In a recent study, we proposed robust method for quantification of BAs from B . sacra resin [ 44 , 45 ]. However, the biosynthesis of triterpenes via the enzymatically driven cyclization of oxidosqualene [ 48 ] has not been fully elucidated and least has been known till now.…”