Natural Product Derivatives

Plants and microorganisms form not only a good source of drug molecules and nutraceuticals but also provide leads for development of potent therapeutic agents for various diseases. Approximately 25% of all prescription drugs used now contain compounds based on lead molecules originally isolated from plants. In areas of cancer and infectious diseases over 60-75% of drugs are shown to be of natural origin. Hence natural product research is relevant and important and hence the need to probe further in this area. Hence natural product research is of immense importance to mankind and continue to be a source for various problems either as drugs, insecticides, nutraceuticals or chemical leads. Several medicinal plants such as Psoralea corylifolia, Garcinia mangostina, Garcinia cambogia, Anacardium occidentale, Boswellia serrata and etc.,have been worked out and obtained very intersting leads.

Several benzamide derivatives were synthesized from a natural product anacardic acid, a major constituent of cashew nut shell liquid. Cytotoxic effect of these synthesized compounds were tested on HeLa cell line of wild type with relatively high expression of p300 and on HCT-15, which is p300 negative. Of all the compounds, 2-isopropoxy-6-pentadecyl-N-pyridin-4-ylbenzamide, 2-ethoxy-N-(3-nitrophenyl)-6-pentadecyl benzamide and 2-ethoxy-6-pentadecyl-N-pyridin-4-ylbenzamide were found to be more potent with IC50 values 11.02 μM, 13.55 μM, 15.29 μM respectively on HeLa cell line and their activities are comparable with garcinol which is a cell permeable HAT inhibitor and 10 fold more active than p300 HAT activators so far reported.