Biogenetic and biomimetic synthesis of natural bisditerpenoids: hypothesis and practices

Covering: up to March 2022Bisditerpenoids, or diterpenoid dimers, are a group of natural products with high structural variance, deriving from homo- or hetero-dimeric coupling of two diterpenoid units. They usually possess complex architectures resulting from the diversity of monomeric diterpenoids as building blocks and the dimerization processes. These compounds have attracted the attention of synthetic and biological scientists owing to the rarity of their natural origin and their significant biological activities. Herein, we provide a review highlighting some of the interesting bisditerpenoids reported since 1961 and showcase the chemical diversity in both their structures and biosynthesis, as well as their biological functions. This review focuses on the biosynthetic dimerization pathways of interesting molecules and their biomimetic synthesis, which may act as useful inspiration for the discovery and synthesis of more bisditerpenoids and further pharmacological investigations.

Enantioselective Peroxidation of C-Alkynyl Imines Enabled by Chiral BINOL Calcium Phosphate

Herein, we reported a catalytic enantioselective addition of C-alkynyl imines with hydroperoxides catalyzd by chiral BINOL calcium phosphate, affording a broad range of enantioenriched α-peroxy propargylamines in good yields (80-99%)...

Hot off the press

A personal selection of 32 recent papers is presented covering various aspects of current developments in bioorganic chemistry and novel natural products such as asporychalasin from Aspergillus oryzae.