Synthesis and Biological Evaluations of Electrophilic Steroids Inspired by the Taccalonolides

Natural
products have served as inspirational scaffolds for the
design and synthesis of novel antineoplastic agents. Here we present
our preliminary efforts on the synthesis and biological evaluation
of a new class of electrophilic steroids inspired by the naturally
occurring taccalonolides. We demonstrate that these simplified analogs
exhibit highly persistent antiproliferative properties similar to
the taccalonolides and retain activity against resistant cancer cell
lines that warrants further preclinical development.