Polyene macrolide antibiotics are naturally occurring antifungal agents. Members of this class include amphotericin B, which has been used widely to treat systemic fungal infections. A general synthetic strategy has been devised to prepare polyol chains associated with the polyene macrolides. Cyanohydrin acetonide alkylations were used to assemble the carbon skeleton, and a simple modification ...

Monoethyl malonate (1) and tert-butyl alcohol are esterified by catalysis with dicyclohexylcarbodiimide and 4-dimethylaminopyridine to yield ethyl t-butyl malonate (2). The ethoxymagnesio derivative (3) of the ester is condensed with β-carbomethoxypropionyl chloride to give the triester (4), which is decomposed by heating under vacuum in the presence of β-naphthalensulfonic acid to give ethyl m...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS The release of hydrogen cyanide (HCN) from injured plant tissue affects multiple ecological interactions. Plant-derived HCN can act as a defence against herbivores and also plays an important role in plant-pathogen interactions. Crucial for activity as a feeding deterrent is the amount of HCN generated per unit time, referred to as cyanogenic capacity (HCNc). Strong intraspe...

Franz Effenberger * . Cyanohydrins have always held a place of importance both as technical products and as reagents in organic chemistry. It is surprising. therefore. that optically active cyanohydrins have been extensively investigated and employed for syntheses relatively recently. This can be explained by the fact that only in the past few years have enzymatic methods made chiral cyanohydri...