In this review we cover various approaches to meta- and paracyclophanes involving popular reactions. Generally, we have included a strategy where the reaction was used for assembling the cyclophane skeleton for further functionalization. In several instances, after the cyclophane is made several popular reactions are used and these are not covered here. We included various natural products rela...

Natural products are leads for new antibiotics as a result of their structural complexity and diversity. We have isolated a series of structurally related polyketide-derived natural products from Streptomyces venezuelae ISP5230. The most active of these jadomycin analogues showed good activity against a variety of staphylococci, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

A short, convergent and general strategy for stereoselective total synthesis of biologically active α-substituted γ-hydroxymethyl γ-lactone based natural products cananginone C and debilisone A has been developed. The salient features of this synthesis include Cadiot-Chodkiewicz coupling, Evans allylation, Sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylation and γ-lactonization. The originally proposed structu...

A simple evolutionary model is presented which explains why organisms produce so many natural products, why so many have low biological activity, why enzymes involved in natural product synthesis have the properties they do and why natural product metabolism is shaped as it is.

After an initial period of validating asymmetric organocatalysis by using a wide range of important model reactions that constitute the essential tools of organic synthesis, the time has now been reached when organocatalysis can be used to address specific issues and solve pending problems of stereochemical relevance. This Review deals with selected studies reported in 2006 and the first half o...

Fusarins G1/G2 (1/2) and G3/G4 (3/4), two sets of interesting examples of diastereoisomers with substantially identical NMR data, were discovered from natural products. The reason was discussed and the generally applicable determinant conditions were proposed. The minimum interval for stereoclusters to be entirely segregated was also discussed.

A total of 454 specimens of meat products were examined for salmonellae by using five procedures of enrichment. The use of a selective motility medium, inoculated from enrichment in Muller-Kauffmann broth, resulted in an increase in the number of positive specimens. However, simple enrichment in Rappaport-Vassiliadis broth, after preenrichment, was more sensitive and specific for recovering sal...

A spiro[5.5]ketal library embodying the core structure of numerous biologically active natural products was synthesized employing a double intramolecular hetero Michael reaction as a key transformation.