Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of tasiamide analogues as tumor inhibitors.

Eighteen analogues of the marine cytotoxic linear peptide tasiamide were designed, synthesized and screened for their inhibitory activities against the growth of human nasopharyngeal carcinoma (KB) and human non-small cell lung tumor (A549) cell lines. The results indicated that minor modifications of the C-terminuswith aromatic groups were tolerated, with the IC50 values between 1.29 and 12.88 μM against these two cancer cell lines. Truncation, minor modifications at the N-terminus or elimination of the N-methyl groups in N-Me-d-Gln and/or N-Me-d-Phe residues resulted in inactive analogues.