Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Review of Pentacyclic Triterpenes by Hongbin Sun

I recently stumbled upon an outstanding review article in Natural Product Reports written by Hongbin Sun and Huaming Sheng that covers the organic chemistry and biochemistry related to the pentacyclic triterpenoids. Many organic chemists are familiar with complex natural product targets such as germanicol and lupeol (shown above) because of the pioneering total synthesis studies of Ireland, Stork, Johnson, Corey and others. This landmark synthetic work is covered in detail along with a critical analysis and comparison of retrosynthetic strategy. The pentacyclic triterpenes are also highlighted in the Review as multi-target therapeutic agents for metabolic and vascular diseases. I am currently in the process of pouring through the details of the manuscript by Sun and I would recommend it to other scientists with an interest in terpenoid research.

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