Book Description
Plants, as a huge source of medicinal agents, have played a very important role in human history. As modern medicine developed, not only many useful drugs were discovered from medicinal plants, but also many botanical supplements have benefited human health. The synthesis of biologically active natural products and their analogs has become an important tool in drug discovery and life sciences. Hypericum (St. John's wort) and Echinacea are two of the herbs most commonly used by consumers in the United States. As part of an NIH-funded Iowa Botanical Supplements Research Center, our group mainly focuses on the synthesis of active constituents in Hypericum and Echinacea. In this context, we explore direct routes to the synthesis of several classes of natural products and analogs. Chapter 1 describes the direct synthesis of hyperolactone C. Chapter 2 describes regioselective Diels-Alder reactions directed by remote substituents. Chapter 3 describes the synthesis of the phytochemical medicinal reagents, pterocarpins. Chapter 4 describes a general synthesis of three classes of natural products: flavones, aurones, and acyl phloroglucinols. Chapter 5 describes the total synthesis of lycorines. During the process of natural products synthesis, novel synthetic methodologies are developed. The strategies we design will be useful to synthesize other structure-related natural products.
