*Article* **Access to New Cytotoxic Triterpene and Steroidal Acid-TEMPO Conjugates by Ugi Multicomponent-Reactions †**

**Haider N. Sultani <sup>1</sup> , Ibrahim Morgan <sup>1</sup> , Hidayat Hussain <sup>1</sup> , Andreas H. Roos <sup>2</sup> , Haleh H. Haeri <sup>2</sup> , Goran N. Kaluderovi´c ¯ 1,3 , Dariush Hinderberger <sup>2</sup> and Bernhard Westermann 1,4,\***


**Abstract:** Multicomponent reactions, especially the Ugi-four component reaction (U-4CR), provide powerful protocols to efficiently access compounds having potent biological and pharmacological effects. Thus, a diverse library of betulinic acid (BA), fusidic acid (FA), cholic acid (CA) conjugates with TEMPO (nitroxide) have been prepared using this approach, which also makes them applicable in electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy. Moreover, convertible amide modified spin-labelled fusidic acid derivatives were selected for post-Ugi modification utilizing a wide range of reaction conditions which kept the paramagnetic center intact. The nitroxide labelled betulinic acid analogue **6** possesses cytotoxic effects towards two investigated cell lines: prostate cancer PC3 (IC<sup>50</sup> 7.4 ± 0.7 µM) and colon cancer HT29 (IC<sup>50</sup> 9.0 ± 0.4 µM). Notably, spin-labelled fusidic acid derivative **8** acts strongly against these two cancer cell lines (PC3: IC<sup>50</sup> 6.0 ± 1.1 µM; HT29: IC<sup>50</sup> 7.4 ± 0.6 µM). Additionally, another fusidic acid analogue **9** was also found to be active towards HT29 with IC<sup>50</sup> 7.0 ± 0.3 µM (CV). Studies on the mode of action revealed that compound **8** increased the level of caspase-3 significantly which clearly indicates induction of apoptosis by activation of the caspase pathway. Furthermore, the exclusive mitochondria targeting of compound **18** was successfully achieved, since mitochondria are the major source of ROS generation.

**Keywords:** multi-component reaction; fusidic acid; TEMPO-conjugate; electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy; caspase-3
