Abstract:Objective: To synthesize and evaluate anti-tumor activity of oleanolic acid-α-aminophosphonate derivatives. Method: Oleanolic acid-α-aminophosphonate derivatives were synthesized from oleanolic acid, which was treated by acetylation, then the acetylated product was reacted with oxalyl chloride, followed by esterification with α-aminophosphonate under triethylamine to obtain nine target compounds. The structures of these compounds were identified. MTT method was used to assay the anti-tumor activity of synthesized compounds against human lung cancer cell lines A549, human hepatic cell lines HepG-2, human cervical carcinoma cell lines Hela and human breast cancer cell lines MDA-MB-231.The density of cell culture was 2-3×104/mL, the concentration of drug was 50 μmol·L-1 for 48 hours. Result: These target compounds showed varying degrees of inhibitory activity against tumor cell lines. Compounds 2, 4, 7 and 10 exhibited significant inhibitory activity against human lung tumor cell A549 and human cervical carcinoma Hela (the inhibition rate against A549 was respectively 87.5%, 85.3%, 87.1% and 87.8%;the inhibition rate against Hela was respectively 85.7%, 78.7%, 83.6% and 87.9%). Compounds 2 and 10 showed high inhibitory activity against human breast tumor cell MDA-MB-231 (the inhibition rate was respectively 82.0% and 88.1%). Conclusion: These oleanolic acid-α-aminophosphonate derivatives exhibited varying degrees of inhibitory activity against tumor cell lines. The compounds with ortho-substituted by halogen in phenyl ring showed better inhibitory activity.