Design and Synthesis of Natural Product Inspired Libraries Based on the Three-Dimensional (3D) Cedrane Scaffold: Toward the Exploration of 3D Biological Space

A chemoinformatic method was developed to extract nonflat scaffolds embedded in natural products within the Dictionary of Natural Products (DNP). The cedrane scaffold was then chosen as an example of a nonflat scaffold that directs substituents in three-dimensional (3D) space. A cedrane scaffold that has three orthogonal handles to allow generation of 1D, 2D, and 3D libraries was synthesized on a large scale. These libraries would cover more than 50% of the natural diversity of natural products with an embedded cedrane scaffold. Synthesis of three focused natural product-like libraries based on the 3D cedrane scaffold was achieved. A phenotypic assay was used to test the biological profile of synthesized compounds against normal and Parkinson’s patient-derived cells. The cytological profiles of the synthesized analogues based on the cedrane scaffold revealed that this 3D scaffold, prevalidated by nature, can interact with biological systems as it displayed various effects against normal and Parkinson’s patient-derived cell lines.