Natural product synthesis articles from across Nature Portfolio

The use of step count as a metric of synthetic efficiency carries opportunities and challenges. Here, proposals are made to standardize what constitutes a synthetic step and how steps are counted. These proposals may be beneficial in the holistic evaluation of published synthetic routes.

Metal-catalysed asymmetric allylic alkylations are now well established in natural product synthesis. When applied to butenolides, this reaction has always produced the C3-allylated products rather than the C5-allylated analogues. A method is introduced that provides a switch in regioselectivity and enables straightforward access to butenolide-containing natural products with complete stereocontrol.

Aminoglycosides are an important class of potent antibiotics; however traditional synthetic approaches are lengthy and often rely on enzyme-based routes. Now, a formal enantioselective copper-catalysed hydroamination of benzene enables the total synthesis of the antibiotic (+)-ribostamycin in ten linear steps.

Nature prepares diverse terpene architectures in a three-step process starting from isoprene building blocks. A new three-step synthetic procedure is introduced to prepare terpenes starting from readily available phenols. Similarly to those used in nature, this pathway provides reliable and efficient access to diverse and complex terpene architectures.

The application of computational tools in the study of natural products continues its inexorable rise. A recent report describing an asymmetric total synthesis of resveratrol oligomers provides an example in which computation played an integral role.