Microbial Catalyzed Regio-Selective Demethylation of Colchicine by Streptomyces griseus ATCC 13273

Colchicinoids and their derivatives are of great importance in pharmaceutical applications, and colchicine is usually used as the first choice for the treatment of gout. To expand the structural diversities and clinical application of colchicinoids, many attempts have been established for the derivatives with better activity or less toxicity. Herein, in this paper, we report a direct microbial transformation of colchicine into 2-O-demethyl-colchicine (M1) and 3-O-demethl-colchicine (M2) by Streptomyces griseus ATCC 13273. It is noteworthy that when DMF was used as co-solvent, the yield of M1 and M2 could reach up to 51 and 31%, respectively. All the structures of the metabolites were elucidated unambiguously by ESI-MS, ¹H-NMR, ¹³C-NMR, and 2D-NMR spectroscopy.