In this article, we describe the synthesis of a new series of ferrocene conjugates of pseudo-dipeptides derived from D-xylose and different L-amino acids. The pseudo-dipeptides (3a-f) were synthesized by the reaction of 5-amino-5-deoxy-1,2-O-isopropylidene-alpha-D-xylofuranose (1) with different N-Boc-L-amino acids (2a-f). Subsequently, the pseudo-dipeptides were insitu converted to amino-amides (4a-f) and treated with ferrocenoyl chloride to obtain the ferrocenyl xylofuranose pseudo-dipeptide conjugates (5a-f). The structure of the pseudo-dipeptide 3b was determined by X-ray crystallography. Low electrochemical diffusion coefficient (D-f) values were obtained for the ferrocenyl compounds (5a-f) in DMSO-buffer solutions. Promising cytotoxicity was observed for the ferrocenyl pseudo-dipeptides (5a-f) as compared to the parent pseudo-dipeptides (3a-f). (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.