Discovery of artemisinin-glycolipid hybrids as anti-oral cancer agents

Abstract

Novel artemisinin-glycolipid hybrids were directly synthesized from 12β (C-C)-type deoxoartemisinin and glycolipid and exhibited exceptional in vitro anticancer activity, particularly against the oral carcinoma cancer cell lines, respectively. The artemisinin-glycolipid hybrids, with effective concentrations under 20μM, demonstrated better anticancer activity than either artemisinin or glycolipid alone and showed five times more anti-oral cancer activity than either cisplatin or paclitaxel. © 2011 Pharmaceutical Society of Japan.