Jasmonate (JA) and its derivatives are lipid-based plant hormones that regulate a wide range of processes in plants, ranging from growth and photosynthesis to reproductive development. In particular, JAs are critical for plant defense against herbivory and plant responses to poor environmental conditions and other kinds of abiotic and biotic challenges. Some JAs can also be released as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to permit communication between plants in anticipation of mutual dangers.
Jasmone is an organic compound, which is a volatile portion of the oil from jasmine flowers. It is a colorless to pale yellow liquid. Jasmone can exist in two isomeric forms with differing geometry around the pentenyl double bond, cis-jasmone and trans-jasmone. The natural extract contains only the cis form, while synthetic material is often a mixture of both, with the cis form predominating. Both forms have similar odors and chemical properties. Its structure was deduced by Lavoslav Ružička.
Jasmonic acid (JA) is an organic compound found in several plants including jasmine. The molecule is a member of the jasmonate class of plant hormones. It is biosynthesized from linolenic acid by the octadecanoid pathway. It was first isolated in 1957 as the methyl ester of jasmonic acid by the Swiss chemist Édouard Demole and his colleagues.
Grapefruit mercaptan is a natural organic compound found in grapefruit. It is a monoterpenoid that contains a thiol functional group. Structurally a hydroxy group of terpineol is replaced by the thiol in grapefruit mercaptan, so it also called thioterpineol. Volatile thiols typically have very strong, often unpleasant odors that can be detected by humans in very low concentrations. Grapefruit mercaptan has a very potent, but not unpleasant, odor, and it is the chemical constituent primarily responsible for the aroma of grapefruit. This characteristic aroma is a property of only the R enantiomer.
Etonitazene, also known as EA-4941 or CS-4640, is a benzimidazole opioid, first reported in 1957, that has been shown to have approximately 1,000 to 1,500 times the potency of morphine in animals.
A Grob fragmentation is an elimination reaction that breaks a neutral aliphatic chain into three fragments: a positive ion spanning atoms 1 and 2, an unsaturated neutral fragment spanning positions 3 and 4, and a negative ion comprising the rest of the chain.
Jasminum grandiflorum, also known variously as the Spanish jasmine, Royal jasmine, Catalan jasmine, Sicilian jasmine, is a species of jasmine native to South Asia, the Arabian peninsula, East and Northeast Africa and the Yunnan and Sichuan regions of China. The species is widely cultivated and is reportedly naturalized in Guinea, the Maldive Islands, Mauritius, Réunion, Java, the Cook Islands, Chiapas, Central America, and the Caribbean. It is closely related to, and sometimes treated as merely a form of, Jasminum officinale.
2-Aminothiazole is a heterocyclic amine featuring a thiazole core. It can also be considered a cyclic isothiourea. It possesses an odor similar to pyridine and is soluble in water, alcohols and diethyl ether. 2-Aminothiazole itself is mainly of academic interest, with few exceptions. It is a precursor to a sulfathiazole. 2-Aminothiazole can be used as a thyroid inhibitor in the treatment of hyperthyroidism.
Albert Jakob Eschenmoser (5 August 1925 – 14 July 2023) was a Swiss organic chemist, best known for his work on the synthesis of complex heterocyclic natural compounds, most notably vitamin B12. In addition to his significant contributions to the field of organic synthesis, Eschenmoser pioneered work in the Origins of Life (OoL) field with work on the synthetic pathways of artificial nucleic acids. Before retiring in 2009, Eschenmoser held tenured teaching positions at the ETH Zurich and The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California as well as visiting professorships at the University of Chicago, Cambridge University, and Harvard.
Amé Pictet was a Swiss chemist. He discovered the Pictet–Spengler reaction, and the related Pictet–Hubert reaction and Pictet–Gams reaction.
Wine lactone is a pleasant smelling compound found naturally in apples, orange juice, grapefruit juice, orange essential oil, clementine peel oil and various grape wines. It was first discovered as an essential oil metabolite in koala urine by Southwell in 1975. It was discovered several years later by Guth in white wines and was named "wine lactone". This monoterpene imparts "coconut, woody and sweet" odors to a wine. There are 8 possible isomers of wine lactone with the isomer being the only one that has been found in wine. This isomer is also the most potent of all eight with an odor detection threshold of 10 ng/L in model wine.
Philip Kraft is a German organic chemist. Since 1996 he has been employed by Givaudan, a leading Flavor and Fragrance company, where he designs captive odorants for use in perfumes. He has lectured at the University of Bern, the University of Zurich, and the ETH Zurich.
The total synthesis of the complex biomolecule vitamin B12 was accomplished in two different approaches by the collaborating research groups of Robert Burns Woodward at Harvard and Albert Eschenmoser at ETH in 1972. The accomplishment required the effort of no less than 91 postdoctoral researchers (Harvard: 77, ETH: 14), and 12 Ph.D. students (at ETH) from 19 different nations over a period of almost 12 years. The synthesis project induced and involved a major change of paradigm in the field of natural product synthesis.
Isobornyl cyclohexanol is an organic compound used primarily as a fragrance because of its aroma which is similar to sandalwood oil. Its chemical structure is closely related to that of both α-santalol and β-santalol, which are the primary constituents of sandalwood oil.
Günther Ohloff was a prominent German fragrance chemist.
ε-Carotene (epsilon-carotene) is a carotene. It can be synthesized from 2,7-dimethyl-2,4,6-octatrienedial and 2-methyl-4-(2,6,6-trimethyl-2-cyclohexen-1-yl)-3-butenal.
Sillage in perfume refers to the trail created by a perfume when it is worn on the skin. It comes from the word in French for "wake" and can best be described as how a fragrance diffuses "in a persons' wake," or, behind the wearer as they move. A fragrance does not need to be a heavy one to have a large sillage.
Isotonitazene is a benzimidazole-derived opioid analgesic drug related to etonitazene, which has been sold as a designer drug. It has only around half the potency of etonitazene in animal studies, but it is likely even less potent in humans as was seen with etonitazene. Isotonitazene was fully characterized in November 2019 in a paper where the authors performed a full analytical structure elucidation in addition to determination of the potency at the μ-opioid receptor using a biological functional assay in vitro. While isotonitazene was not compared directly to morphine in this assay, it was found to be around 2.5 times more potent than hydromorphone and slightly more potent than fentanyl.
1,2,3,4-Cyclohexanetetrol (also named cyclohexane-1,2,3,4-tetrol, 1,2,3,4-tetrahydroxycyclohexane, or ortho-cyclohexanetetrol) is an organic compound whose molecule can be described as a cyclohexane with four hydroxyl (OH) groups substituted for hydrogen atoms on four consecutive carbon atoms. Its formula can be written C
6H
12O
4, C
6H
8(OH)
4, or (–CH(OH)–)4(–CH
2–)2.
1,2,4,5-Cyclohexanetetrol (also named cyclohexane-1,2,4,5-tetrol, 1,2,4,5-tetrahydroxycyclohexane, or para-cyclohexanetetrol) is an organic compound whose molecule can be described as a cyclohexane with four hydroxyl (OH) groups substituted for hydrogen atoms on two non-adjacent pairs of adjacent carbon atoms. Its formula can be written C
6H
12O
4, C
6H
8(OH)
4, or [–(CH(OH)–)2–CH
2–]2.
