Journal of Natural Products: "Additional bioactive silvestrol analogues from the roots of Aglaia perviridis collected in Vietnam"

About 20 years ago, a new bioactive compound called silvestrol was isolated from tropical plant collected in Indonesian Borneo and structurally characterized by the group of Dr. Douglas Kinghorn. Then, Dr. Michael Grever and his colleagues at OSUCCC showed this compound to exhibit promising effects against various human lymphoma and leukemia experimental models. A Canadian group determined the specific cellular mechanism of action of silvestrol, and presently it is available commercially as a laboratory probe to investigate the phenomenon of protein translation in cancer. In this highly collaborative research article, new silvestrol analogs have been isolated, partially synthesized, and tested for growth inhibitory effects against a small panel of cancer cell lines. The manuscript was published as part of the Journal of Natural Products special issue in honor of Dr. Sheo B. Singh, who served previously as Director and Global Head of Natural Products Chemistry at Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, New Jersey.