A series of 9-cis-retinoic acid analogs modified at the hydrophobic ring with a (bi)cyclohexenyl moiety
derived from natural terpenes has been stereoselectively prepared using a Suzuki cross-coupling as
key step. Transient transactivation studies indicate that modification of the hydrophobic ring impacts
dramatically on RXR-binding and transactivation, with most retinoids being inactive on RXRb, while preserving
their RAR pan-agonist profile. Furthermore, only the RARc subtype was capable of enantiomeric
discrimination with some pairs of enantiomeric terpene-retinoids.