Synthesis and Evaluation of Three Novel Scyphostatin Analogues as Neutral Sphingomyelinase Inhibitors

The development of new therapies for various inflammatory and autoimmune diseases could be aided by the efficient synthesis and study of three novel analogues of scyphostatin (1), an inhibitor of sphingomyelinases. Unlike previous analogues, compounds such as 2 lack the epoxy moiety of scyphostatin. This could help resolve the contribution of the various reactive functionalities of the inhibitors to the observed biological activity.