Synthesis of phospholipase A2 inhibitory biflavonoids

A series of C-C biflavones was designed to investigate the relationship between structural array of different flavone-flavone subunit linkage and the inhibitory activity against phospholipase A(2) (PLA(2)). Among six classes of C-C biflavones designed, four classes of C-C biflavones, which have flavone-flavone subunit linkages at A ring-A ring, A ring-B ring, B ring-B ring, and B ring-C ring, were synthesized. The synthetic biflavones exhibited somewhat different inhibitory activities against sPLA(2)-IIA. Among them, the biflavone a having a C-C 4'-4' linkage showed comparable inhibitory activity with that of the natural biflavonoid, ochnaflavone, and 7-fold stronger activity than that of amentoflavone. Further chemical modification is being carried out in order to obtain the chemically optimized biflavonoids. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.