Synthesis of new lipophilic ipomeanol analogues and their cytotoxic activities.

Analogues of the cytotoxic natural product (+/-)-4-ipomeanol (1) have been synthesized starting from furan-3-carbaldehyde and furan-2-carbaldehyde, followed by Grignard reaction and Sharpless dihydroxylation. The resulting alcohols were esterified with octanoyl chloride. The cytotoxic activities of the resulting compounds were determined in the MTT assay against a human leukaemia cell line (HL-60).