The Chemistry of Pentalenolactones. An Overview

ROLANDO A. SPANEVELLO; SILVINA C. PELLEGRINET

Current Topics in Phytochemistry

Research Trends

Lugar: Trivandrum; Año: 2000 vol. 3 p. 225 - 231

The pentalenolactones are a growing family of acidic lipophilic sesquiterpenes with a highly compacted carbon skeleton. They present an angularly fussed tricyclo pentanoid lactone with different states of oxidation in each of the three rings. These natural products have been isolated from a variety of Streptomyces species and have shown antibiotic, antiviral and antitumoral properties. Special efforts have been devoted to study the inhibition of glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase by pentalenolactone in Trypanosome brucei. These important biological effects have promoted considerable synthetic research in this area.