Natural Products Chemistry

The chemistry of isoindole natural products

This review highlights the chemical and biological aspects of natural products containing an oxidized or reduced isoindole skeleton. This motif is found in its intact or modified form in indolocarbazoles, macrocyclic polyketides (cytochalasan alkaloids), the aporhoeadane alkaloids, meroterpenoids from Stachybotrys species and anthraquinone-type alkaloids. Concerning their biological activity, m...

Natural products chemistry in the third millennium

The main directions of Natural Products Chemistry in the Third Millennium are summarized.

Neurotrophic natural products: chemistry and biology.

Neurodegenerative diseases and spinal cord injury affect approximately 50 million people worldwide, bringing the total healthcare cost to over 600 billion dollars per year. Nervous system growth factors, that is, neurotrophins, are a potential solution to these disorders, since they could promote nerve regeneration. An average of 500 publications per year attests to the significance of neurotro...

screening plants for bioactive natural products, using ecological chemistry observations

Chemical ecology: can it survive without natural products chemistry?

N disciplines arise by convergence of interests. Chemical ecology is the product of a partnership between biologists and natural products chemists united by a shared vision and empowered by complementary skills. The vision stems from the realization that all organisms emit chemical signals and that all, in their respective ways, respond to the chemical emissions of others. Nature, in accord wit...