Salvinorin A is the main active psychotropic molecule in Salvia divinorum. Salvinorin A is considered a dissociative hallucinogen.
In the fields of medicine, biotechnology and pharmacology, drug discovery is the process by which new candidate medications are discovered.
Semisynthesis, or partial chemical synthesis, is a type of chemical synthesis that uses chemical compounds isolated from natural sources as the starting materials to produce novel compounds with distinct chemical and medicinal properties. The novel compounds generally have a high molecular weight or a complex molecular structure, more so than those produced by total synthesis from simple starting materials. Semisynthesis is a means of preparing many medicines more cheaply than by total synthesis since fewer chemical steps are necessary.
A natural product is a natural compound or substance produced by a living organism—that is, found in nature. In the broadest sense, natural products include any substance produced by life. Natural products can also be prepared by chemical synthesis and have played a central role in the development of the field of organic chemistry by providing challenging synthetic targets. The term natural product has also been extended for commercial purposes to refer to cosmetics, dietary supplements, and foods produced from natural sources without added artificial ingredients.
Organochlorine chemistry is concerned with the properties of organochlorine compounds, or organochlorides, organic compounds containing at least one covalently bonded atom of chlorine. The chloroalkane class includes common examples. The wide structural variety and divergent chemical properties of organochlorides lead to a broad range of names, applications, and properties. Organochlorine compounds have wide use in many applications, though some are of profound environmental concern, with TCDD being one of the most notorious.
Chalcone is the organic compound C6H5C(O)CH=CHC6H5. It is an α,β-unsaturated ketone. A variety of important biological compounds are known collectively as chalcones or chalconoids. They are widely known bioactive substances, fluorescent materials, and chemical intermediates.
Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), also known as 5-(hydroxymethyl)furfural, is an organic compound formed by the dehydration of reducing sugars. It is a white low-melting solid which is highly soluble in both water and organic solvents. The molecule consists of a furan ring, containing both aldehyde and alcohol functional groups.
Trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) is an organofluorine compound with the chemical formula CF3CO2H. It is a haloacetic acid, with all three of the acetyl group's hydrogen atoms replaced by fluorine atoms. It is a colorless liquid with a vinegar-like odor. TFA is a stronger acid than acetic acid, having an acid ionisation constant, Ka, that is approximately 34,000 times higher, as the highly electronegative fluorine atoms and consequent electron-withdrawing nature of the trifluoromethyl group weakens the oxygen-hydrogen bond (allowing for greater acidity) and stabilises the anionic conjugate base. TFA is widely used in organic chemistry for various purposes.
Polygodial is chemical compound found in dorrigo pepper, mountain pepper, horopito, canelo, paracress, water-pepper, and Dendrodoris limbata.
Roquefortine C is a mycotoxin that belongs to a class of naturally occurring 2,5-diketopiperazines produced by various fungi, particularly species from the genus Penicillium. It was first isolated from a strain of Penicillium roqueforti, a species commercially used as a source of proteolytic and lipolytic enzymes during maturation of the blue-veined cheeses, Roquefort, Danish Blue, Stilton and Gorgonzola.
Glycorandomization, is a drug discovery and drug development technology platform to enable the rapid diversification of bioactive small molecules, drug leads and/or approved drugs through the attachment of sugars. Initially developed as a facile method to manipulate carbohydrate substitutions of naturally occurring glycosides to afford the corresponding differentially glycosylated natural product libraries, glycorandomization applications have expanded to include both small molecules and even macromolecules (proteins). Also referred to as 'glycodiversification', glycorandomization has led to the discovery of new glycoside analogs which display improvements in potency, selectivity and/or ADMET as compared to the parent molecule.
Hyperoside is a chemical compound. It is the 3-O-galactoside of quercetin.
Syringic acid is a naturally occurring phenolic compound and dimethoxybenzene that is commonly found as a plant metabolite.
Pinitol is a cyclitol, a cyclic polyol. It is a known anti-diabetic agent isolated from Sutherlandia frutescens leaves. Gall plant tannins can be differentiated by their content of pinitol. It was first identified in the sugar pine. It is also found in other plants, such as in the pods of the carob tree.
Allophylus edulis is a plant species in the genus Allophylus endemic to the Guianas, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay.
2,5-Diketopiperazine is an organic compound with the formula (NHCH2C(O))2. The compound features a six-membered ring containing two amide groups at opposite positions in the ring. It was first compound containing a peptide bond to be characterized by X-ray crystallography in 1938. It is the parent of a large class of 2,5-Diketopiperazines (2,5-DKPs) with the formula (NHCH2(R)C(O))2 (R = H, CH3, etc.). They are ubiquitous peptide in nature. They are often found in fermentation broths and yeast cultures as well as embedded in larger more complex architectures in a variety of natural products as well as several drugs. In addition, they are often produced as degradation products of polypeptides, especially in processed foods and beverages. They have also been identified in the contents of comets.
Verruculogen is a mycotoxin produced by certain strains of aspergillus that belongs to a class of naturally occurring 2,5-diketopiperazines. It is an annulated analogue of cyclo(L-Trp-L-Pro) which belongs to the most abundant and structurally diverse class of tryptophan-proline 2,5-diketopiperazine natural products. It produces tremors in mice due to its neurotoxic properties. It also tested positive in a Salmonella/mammalian microsome assay and was shown to be genotoxic. It is a potent blocker of calcium-activated potassium channels.
Photogeochemistry merges photochemistry and geochemistry into the study of light-induced chemical reactions that occur or may occur among natural components of Earth's surface. The first comprehensive review on the subject was published in 2017 by the chemist and soil scientist Timothy A Doane, but the term photogeochemistry appeared a few years earlier as a keyword in studies that described the role of light-induced mineral transformations in shaping the biogeochemistry of Earth; this indeed describes the core of photogeochemical study, although other facets may be admitted into the definition.
Brevianamide F , also known as cyclo-(L-Trp-L-Pro), belongs to a class of naturally occurring 2,5-diketopiperazines. It is the simplest member and the biosynthetic precursor of a large family of biologically active prenylated tryptophan-proline 2,5-diketopiperazines that are produced by the fungi A. fumigatus and Aspergillus sp. It has been isolated from the bacterium Streptomyces sp. strain TN58 and shown to possess activity against the Gram-positive bacteria S. aureus and Micrococcus luteus. It has also been isolated from Bacillus cereus associated with the entomopathogenic nematode Rhabditis (Oscheius) sp. and shown to have antifungal activity against T. rubrum, C. neoformans, and C. albicans, better than amphotericin B. Although the proline 2,5-diketopiperazines are the most abundant and structurally diverse 2,5-diketopiperazines found in food, cyclo(L-Trp-L-Pro) has only been found as a minor 2,5-diketopiperazine (8.2 ppm) in autolyzed yeast extract. Initially, cyclo(L-Trp-L-Pro) and its DL, LD, and DD isomers showed potential for use in the treatment of cardiovascular dysfunction, but they were later shown to be hepatotoxic.
Nereistoxin is a natural product identified in 1962 as the toxic organic compound N,N-dimethyl-1,2-dithiolan-4-amine. It had first been isolated in 1934 from the marine annelid Lumbriconereis heteropoda and acts by blocking the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor. Researchers at Takeda in Japan investigated it as a possible insecticide. They subsequently developed a number of derivatives that were commercialised, including those with the ISO common names bensultap, cartap, thiocyclam and thiosultap.
