ACD/Labs Blog

Davidone F Sophora davidii (Franch.) belong to the family Fabaceae and are shrubs or small trees found in China. Over the years many natural products have been isolated from them, including alkaloids, steroids, lignans, phenolic acids and, mostly, flavonoids. These have been found to have varying biological activities. The chemical investigation of S. davidii which...

Trichilianone D Trichilia species, a genus of plants from the Meliaceae family, are found in tropical forests and are used in traditional medicine. This species is poorly investigated and so a phytochemical study was published just recently [1]. This included the isolation of metabolites and the testing for antileishmanial activity. The study was focused on...

Rhodimer Atilaw et al [1] have been studying the roots of Tephrosia rhodesica, a member of the tropical and subtropical Tephrosia genus consisting of more than 400 species. A new variety of flavonoids has been found in them with promising biological activities (antiplasmodial). They isolated five new compounds including rhodimer 1. Its structure was determined...

Securamine H Bryozoans belonging to the Flustridae family have been shown to be a rich source of structurally unique secondary metabolites. Hansen et al [1] examined the organic extract of Securiflustra securifrons. This resulted in the isolation of three new halogenated, hexacyclic indole-imidazole alkaloids, including securamine H(1), together with the previously known securamines C (2)...

Isatisindigoticanine I Ban Lan Gen, Isatis tinctoria L. (synonym Isatis indigotica Fort.), of the Brassicacene family, is a biennial herbaceous plant. It is widely cultivated and distributed in China, where its roots are used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for the treatment of many diseases. Ban Lan Gen was studied, and a series of alkaloids...

Damirine B The indolocarbazole family of bisindole alkaloids is a well-known class of natural products. It’s best-known member is staurosporine, a protein kinase C inhibitor that belongs to the indolo[2,3‐a] carbazole structural class. Several other indolo[2,3‐a] carbazoles have so far been isolated and identified. However, only a limited number of other isomeric forms of indolocarbazole...

Peyssonnoside A Diterpenoids and their analogues and derivatives are well known and highly varied compounds.  Cyclopropane groups are also frequently encountered in natural products, but it is rare that highly substituted and/or embedded cyclopropanes are reported. The structural novelty of such compounds together with their bioactivity are valuable for medicinal, synthetic and biological chemists. Peyssonnoside...

Symmetric Helical Synthesis Product This month’s problem is again a bit different from the others. It comes from the Department of Chemistry, University of Bath, UK. John Lowe had been trying to challenge Structure Elucidator and asked his colleagues at the Department for interesting problems. David Carbery gave him two synthetic samples, A and B,...

Melohemsine J The plants of the genus Melodinus (Apocynaceae) include 53 species and several of them have been used in traditional Chinese medicine. They can be found in regions of southern China and, together with the Loganiaceae and Rubiaceae families they are known to contain many monoterpenoid indole alkaloids. For these reasons they have been...