Phenanthrenes have become the subject of intensive research during
the past decades because of their structural diversity and wide range
of pharmacological activities. Earlier studies demonstrated that semisynthetic
derivatization of these natural compounds could result in more active
agents, and oxidative transformations are particularly promising in
this regard. In our work, a natural phenanthrene, juncuenin B, was
transformed by hypervalent iodine(III) reagents using a diversity-oriented
approach. Eleven racemic semisynthetic compounds were produced, the
majority containing an alkyl substituted
p
-quinol
ring. Purification of the compounds was carried out by chromatographic
techniques, and their structures were elucidated by 1D and 2D NMR
spectroscopic methods. Stereoisomers of the bioactive derivatives
were separated by chiral-phase HPLC and the absolute configurations
of the active compounds, 2,6-dioxo-1,8a-dimethoxy-1,7-dimethyl-8-vinyl-9,10-dihydrophenanthrenes
(
1a
–
d
), and 8a-ethoxy-1,7-dimethyl-6-oxo-8-vinyl-9,10-dihydrophenanthrene-2-ols
(
7a
,
b
) were determined by ECD measurements
and TDDFT-ECD calculations. The antiproliferative activities of the
compounds were tested on different (MCF-7, T47D, HeLa, SiHa, C33A,
A2780) human gynecological cancer cell lines. Compounds
1a
–
d
,
4a
,
6a
, and
7a
possessed higher activity than juncuenin B on several tumor
cell lines. The structure–activity relationship studies suggested
that the
p
-quinol (2,5-cyclohexadien-4-hydroxy-1-one)
moiety has a considerable effect on the antiproliferative properties,
and substantial differences could be identified in the activities
of the stereoisomers.