Reaction of cellular thiols with the 1,2-dithiolan-3-one 1-oxide moiety of leinamycin triggers the generation of DNA-damaging reactive intermediates. Studies with small, synthetic analogues of leinamycin reveal that the macrocyclic portion of the natural product imparts remarkable hydrolytic stability to the 1,2-dithiolan-3-one 1-oxide heterocycle without substantially compromising its thiol-se...

Synthetic studies on the antibiotic natural product ripostatin A have been carried out with the aim to construct the C9-C10 bond by a nickel(0)-catalyzed coupling reaction of an enyne and an epoxide, followed by rearrangement of the resulting dienylcyclopropane intermediate to afford the skipped 1,4,7-triene. A cyclopropyl enyne fragment corresponding to C1-C9 has been synthesized in high yield...

In search for new natural products, which may lead to the development of new drugs for all kind of applications, novel methods are needed. Here we describe the identification of electrophilic natural products in crude extracts via their reactivity against azide as a nucleophile followed by their subsequent enrichment using a cleavable azide-reactive resin (CARR). Using this approach, natural pr...

Bioactive products from snail slime of “Helix” specie have potential applications in preventing and/or treating several human diseases and in cancer diagnosis. However, the poor pharmacokinetics characteristics of these natural compounds limit their use. Nanotechnology offers promising solutions for the enhanced formulation of these molecules through the synthesis of nanosized drug del...