An efficient synthesis method targeted to marine alkaloids marinacarbolines A-D and their antitumor activities.

Marinacarbolines A-D are a series of marine β-carboline alkaloids isolated from actinomycete Marinactinospora thermotolerans of the deep South China Sea with antiplasmodial activities. In inhibition assays of in vitro growth of Plasmodium falciparum, marinacarbolines exhibited antiplasmodial activity against drug-sensitive line 3D7 and drug-resistant line Dd2 of P. falciparum. However, approaches for the synthesis of such useful compounds are very limited. In this work, we reported a simple, efficient, and versatile process to synthesize marinacarbolines A-D (1-4). On the basis of that, the antitumor activities of marinacarbolines in a structure-dependent manner were allowed to be unveiled.