Bioactive Natural Products (Part E)

Natural product chemistry covers a fascinating area of organic chemistry and its study has enriched organic chemistry in a myriad of different ways. In recent years the thrust has been in three major directions: advances in stereoselective synthesis of bioactive natural products, developments in structure elucidation of complex natural products through the applications of multidimensional NMR and mass spectroscopy, and the integration of bioassay procedures with the isolation processes leading to the isolation of active principles from the extracts. The present volume reflects these developments, and the growing emphasis on bioactive natural products, chemical constituents of echinoderms, diterpenoids from Rabdosia and Eremophila sp., structural studies on saponins, marine sesquiterpene quinones and antimicrobial activity of amphibian venoms. The reviews on bioactive metabolites of Phomophis, cardenolide detection by ELISA, xenocoumacins and bioactive dihydroisocoumarins, CD studies of carbohydrate-molybdate complexes, oncogene function inhibitors from microbial secondary metabolites and Gelsemium and Lupin alkaloids present frontier developments in several areas of natural product chemistry. It is hoped that the present volume, which contains articles by eminent authorities in each field, will be received with the same enthusiasm as the previous volumes of this series.