Diterpenoid lead stevioside and its hydrolysis products steviol and isosteviol: Biological activity and structural modification.

The diterpenoids present highly varied oxidation patterns subjected to fascinating skeletal rearrangements, and possess antitumor, antibacterial, antihyperglycemic, anti-inflammatory activities and so on. While total synthesis is a possible solution to obtain required diterpenoid derivatives, the need for multisteps to build complex "privileged structures" is always prohibitive by semi-synthesis from naturally abundant related molecules. From this perspective, stevioside and its hydrolysis products steviol and isosteviol are good leads in the field of medicinal chemistry for diterpenoid drug discovery. Stevioside has a complex diterpenoid glycoside molecule comprised of an aglycone, steviol with the ent-kaurane skeleton and three molecules of glucose. Hydrolyzed under alkaline or acidic condition, stevioside generates ent-kaurane diterpenoid steviol or ent-beyerane diterpenoid isosteviol, respectively. Except for direct applications, they are widely used to provide ent-kaurane or ent-beyerane core structures for further medicinal chemistry study. Besides, these molecules also serve as model molecules, starting materials or catalysts in the field of synthetic chemistry. In this review, their biological activities and medicinal chemistry work are comprehensively summarized which are very helpful for diterpenoid drug exploration.