Synthesis of aromatic and indole alpha-glucosinolates

Aromatic and indole glucosinolates are important members of the glucosinolate family of compounds du to their potential medicinal properties. They are known to exert antioxidant and anti-carcinogenic activity either by the natural products themselves, or their metabolic products including indole-3-carbinol and isothiocyanates. Natural glucosinolates are all β-glucosinolates; however, α-glucosinolates are also promising compounds for medicinal applications and hence have to be produced synthetically for any bio-activity studies. Here we report on the successful synthesis of a series of α-glucosinolates: α-neoglucobrassicin, α-4-methoxyglucobrassicin, 2,3-dichlorophenyl-α-glucosinolate for the first time. Testing for anti-inflammatory properties of these synthetic GLs, however, did not yield the expected activity.