Thiazoline analogues of epiderstatin, new inhibitors of cell cycle of tsFT-210 cells.

In the course of our study on an alternative synthesis of ( + )-epiderstatin, we found some interesting observations, which helped us for preparing epiderstatin analogues. We developed a new methodology for the syntheses of epiderstatin analogues by using an unusual reaction to study their structure-activity relationship. During study, we found that epiderstatin is not a real inhibitor of signal transduction of EGF, but the inhibition arose from acetoxycycloheximide contaminating the preparation of the natural epiderstatin.^ However, thiazoline analogues of epiderstatin showed unexpected biological activities. In this paper, we wish to report the syntheses of analogues, la, lb, 2a, 2b, 3a and 3b, shown in Fig. 1 and their biological activities. Thesyntheses of the racemic epiderstatin analogues, 4, 5, 10 and ll, are outlined in Fig. 2. Treatment ofcis, trans mixture of 3,5-dimethyl-2-thioglutarimide2) (1)