New Non-Toxic Semi-Synthetic Derivatives from Natural Diterpenes Displaying Anti-Tuberculosis Activity

Abstract

We report herein the synthesis of six diterpene derivatives, three of which are new, generated through known organic chemistry reactions that allowed structural modification of the existing natural products kaurenoic acid (1) and copalic acid (2). The new compounds were fully characterized using high resolution mass spectrometry, infrared spectroscopy, 1H- and 13C-NMR experiments. We also report the evaluation of the anti-tuberculosis potential for all compounds, which showed some promising results for Micobacterium tuberculosis inhibition. Moreover, the toxicity for each of the most active compounds was also assessed.

Keywords

• kaurenoic acid
• copalic acid
• structural modification
• diterpene derivatives
• anti-tuberculosis activity
• cytotoxicity
• Mycobacterium tuberculosis