A series of new prodrugs of daunorubicin and doxorubicin which are candidates for antibody- directed enzyme prodrug therapy (ADEPT) is reported. These compounds (25a, b, c and 32a, b, c) have been designed to generate cytotoxic drugs after activation with β- glucuronidase. As expected, recovery of the active drug was observed after enzymatic cleavage by Escherichia coli β-glucuronidase as well as by a fusion protein which has ...