BACKGROUND Hippodamine is a volatile defence alkaloid isolated from ladybird beetles which holds potential as an agrochemical agent and was the subject of a synthesis by our group in 2005. RESULTS Two enhancements to our previous syntheses of (+/-)-hippodamine and (+/-)-epi-hippodamine are presented which are able to shorten the syntheses by up to two steps. CONCLUSION Key advances include ...

Tetrahydropyrans are structural motifs that are abundantly present in a range of biologically important marine natural products. As such, significant efforts have been paid to the development of efficient and versatile methods for the synthesis of tetrahydropyran derivatives. Neopeltolide, a potent antiproliferative marine natural product, has been an attractive target compound for synthetic ch...

In this study, a series of syntheses was conducted on the pyrimidine system, obtaining bisulfite carboxyl derivatives 4 and hydroxy derivatives 5. In addition, a series of syntheses were carried out as a result of which both alkyl and aromatic amines were obtained. Then, the attempt was made to cyclize these amines in the Mannich reaction to pyrimido[4,5-d]pyrimidines 11, 12. After determinatio...

Polyhydroxylated pyrrolidine, piperidine, and indolizidine alkaloids are of great interest because of their specific glycosidase inhibitory activity." Moreover, it has recently been found in our laboratories that swainsonine (1), a representative of the polyhydroxylated indolizidine alkaloids, has an immunostimulating activity, possibly as a result of its glycosidase inhibitory activity.21 This...

Plants of the Calycanthaceae family, which possesses four genera and about 15 species, are mainly distributed in China, North America and Australia. Chemical studies on the Calycanthaceae have led to the discovery of about 14 alkaloids of different skeletons, including dimeric piperidinoquinoline, dimeric pyrrolidinoindoline and/or trimeric pyrrolidinoindolines, which exhibit significant anti-c...

A simple, efficient and flexible strategy for the syntheses of cladospolides A-C and iso-cladospolide B is reported here. This strategy involves Julia-Kocienski olefination and Yamaguchi macrolactonization as key steps, starting from either d-ribose or suitable tartaric acid esters. Although our initial efforts towards cladospolide A involving a ring closing metathetic approach were not success...

The surfaces of minerals could serve important catalytic roles in the prebiotic syntheses of organic molecules, such as amino acids. Thus, the surface chirality is responsible for the asymmetric syntheses of biomolecules. Here, we show induction of the surface chirality of copper metal film by electrodeposition via electrochemical cell rotation in magnetic fields. Such copper film electrodes ex...