Natural products chemistry. Volume 1 (Nakanishi, Koji; Goto, Toshio; Ito, Sho; Natori, Shinsaku; Nozoe, Shigeo, eds.)

Professor Toshio Ito: a clairvoyant in pericyte biology.

Ito cells are liver-specific pericytes which were first described as Fett Speicherung Zellen, the fat-storing cells encircling outside sinusoidal endothelial cells, in 1951 by the late professor Toshio Ito. His pioneering approaches for morphological characterization of the cells stimulate investigators to further examine their functional roles in liver homeostasis: a body of evidence has been ...

The chemistry of isoindole natural products

This review highlights the chemical and biological aspects of natural products containing an oxidized or reduced isoindole skeleton. This motif is found in its intact or modified form in indolocarbazoles, macrocyclic polyketides (cytochalasan alkaloids), the aporhoeadane alkaloids, meroterpenoids from Stachybotrys species and anthraquinone-type alkaloids. Concerning their biological activity, m...

Natural products chemistry in the third millennium

The main directions of Natural Products Chemistry in the Third Millennium are summarized.

Neurotrophic natural products: chemistry and biology.

Neurodegenerative diseases and spinal cord injury affect approximately 50 million people worldwide, bringing the total healthcare cost to over 600 billion dollars per year. Nervous system growth factors, that is, neurotrophins, are a potential solution to these disorders, since they could promote nerve regeneration. An average of 500 publications per year attests to the significance of neurotro...

screening plants for bioactive natural products, using ecological chemistry observations