Design and Synthesis of Resveratrol Analogs

Resveratrol (3,5,4′-trihydroxy-trans-stilbene), a naturally occurring hydroxystilbene, is considered as an essential anti-oxidative and possessing chemopreventive properties, and is found in various medical plants. It has been proven that resveratrol is a Sirt1 activator and kinds of biological activities. In this paper, we designed and synthesized a series of resveratrol derivatives through a five-step synthetic procedure. Total 11 resveratrol derivatives were prepared from two kinds of hydroxybenzoic acid by methylation and reduction followed by bromination and reaction with triethyl phosphate to get methoxylated diethyl benzylphosphonates, then condensation with a series of aromatic aldehydes by Wittig-Horner reaction to offer the desired compounds in overall yield of about 17.2–48.5 %. These synthesized compounds were characterized on the basis of 1H NMR.