Isolation, Synthesis, and Evolutionary Ecology of Piper Amides

The phytochemistry of the genus Piper is rich in terms of numbers of compounds discovered, but given the diversity of this genus and the intraspecific diversity of secondary metabolites in those species that have been examined, Piper chemistry has not been adequately investigated. The natural products chemistry that has been elucidated is well documented and has been the subject of extensive review (Sengupta and Ray 1987, Parmar et al. 1997). Since those reviews were published, 28 new species have been investigated (Benevides et al. 1999, Chen et al. 2002, Ciccio 1997, de Abreu et al. 2002, Dodson et al. 2000, dos Santos et al. 2001, Facundo and Morais 2003, Jacobs et al. 1999, Joshi et al. 2001, Martins et al. 1998, Masuoka et al. 2002, McFerren and Rodriquez 1998, Moreira et al. 1998, Mundina et al. 1998, Srivastava et al. 2000a, Stohr et al. 2001, Terreaux et al. 1998, Torquilho et al. 2000, Vila et al. 2001, 2003, Wu et al. 1997), and 69 compounds new to Piper have been discovered (Adesina et al. 2002, Alecio et al. 1998, Baldoqui et al. 1999, Banerji et al. 1993, 2002b, Boll et al. 1994, Chen et al. 2002, Ciccio 1997, Da Cunha and Chaves 2001, Das and Kashinatham 1998, daSilva et al. 2002, de Araújo-Júnior et al. 1997, Dodson et al. 2000, Gupta et al. 1999, Jacobs et al. 1999, Joshi et al. 2001, Martins et al. 1998, Masuoka et al. 2002, Menon et al. 2000, 2002, Moreira et al. 1998, 2000, Mundina et al. 1998, Navickiene et al. 2000, Pande et al. 1997, Parmar et al. 1998, Santos and Chaves 1999a,b, Santos et al. 1998, Seeram et al. 1996, Siddiqui et al. 2002, Srivastava et al. 2000a,b, Stohr et al. 1999, Terreaux et al. 1998, Wu et al. 2002a,b, Zeng et al. 1997).