Stellettamide B, a new indolizidine alkaloid from a sponge of the genus Stelletta

Biologically active indolizidine alkaloids

Indolizidine alkaloids are chemical constituents isolated from various marine and terrestrial plants and animals, including but not limited to trees, fungi, ants, and frogs, with a myriad of important biological activities. In this review, we discuss the biological activity and pharmacological effects of indolizidine alkaloids and offer new avenues toward the discovery of new and better drugs based on these naturally occurring compounds.

Marine sponges of the genus Stelletta as promising drug sources: chemical and biological aspects

Marine sponges of the genus Stelletta are well known as rich sources of diverse and complex biologically relevant natural products, including alkaloids, terpenoids, peptides, lipids, and steroids. Some of these metabolites, with novel structures and promising biological activities, have attracted a lot of attention from chemists seeking to perform their total synthesis in parallel to intensive biological studies towards new drug leads. In this review, we summarized the distribution of the chemically investigated Stelletta sponges, the isolation, synthesis and biological activities of their secondary metabolites, covering the literature from 1982 to early 2018.

Simple Indolizidine and Quinolizidine Alkaloids

This review of simple indolizidine and quinolizidine alkaloids (i.e., those in which the parent bicyclic systems are in general not embedded in polycyclic arrays) is an update of the previous coverage in Volume 55 of this series (2001). The present survey covers the literature from mid-1999 to the end of 2013; and in addition to aspects of the isolation, characterization, and biological activity of the alkaloids, much emphasis is placed on their total synthesis. A brief introduction to the topic is followed by an overview of relevant alkaloids from fungal and microbial sources, among them slaframine, cyclizidine, Steptomyces metabolites, and the pantocins. The important iminosugar alkaloids lentiginosine, steviamine, swainsonine, castanospermine, and related hydroxyindolizidines are dealt with in the subsequent section. The fourth and fifth sections cover metabolites from terrestrial plants. Pertinent plant alkaloids bearing alkyl, functionalized alkyl or alkenyl substituents include dendroprimine, anibamine, simple alkaloids belonging to the genera Prosopis, Elaeocarpus, Lycopodium, and Poranthera, and bicyclic alkaloids of the lupin family. Plant alkaloids bearing aryl or heteroaryl substituents include ipalbidine and analogs, secophenanthroindolizidine and secophenanthroquinolizidine alkaloids (among them septicine, julandine, and analogs), ficuseptine, lasubines, and other simple quinolizidines of the Lythraceae, the simple furyl-substituted Nuphar alkaloids, and a mixed quinolizidine-quinazoline alkaloid. The penultimate section of the review deals with the sizable group of simple indolizidine and quinolizidine alkaloids isolated from, or detected in, ants, mites, and terrestrial amphibians, and includes an overview of the "dietary hypothesis" for the origin of the amphibian metabolites. The final section surveys relevant alkaloids from marine sources, and includes clathryimines and analogs, stellettamides, the clavepictines and pictamine, and bis(quinolizidine) alkaloids.

Synthesis of (+/-)-bistellettadine A

Esterification of the trienoic acid with o-xylylene dibromide gave the bis ester that underwent a templated Diels-Alder reaction to afford the macrodiolide stereospecifically in a single step. The synthesis of bistellettadine A was completed in four steps by hydrolysis and side chain elaboration.

Sesterterpenoids from the sponge Sarcotragus sp

Nineteen new sesterterpenoids and eight known compounds were isolated from the sponge Sarcotragus sp. collected from Soheuksan Island, Korea. The structures of these compounds were determined to be linear sesterterpenoids containing furan or related oxygenated functionalities on the basis of combined chemical and spectroscopic analyses. In addition, the configurations of several previously undetermined compounds were assigned. Several compounds exhibited moderate to major antibacterial activity (compounds 1- 3, 17, 18) and cytotoxicity ( 3, 11, 12) against the K562 cell line and inhibitory activity against isocitrate lyase ( 6, 13).

Anticandidal low molecular compounds from higher plants with special reference to compounds from essential oils

The most active low molecular weight compounds from higher plants against Candida species are compiled from a database of antimicrobials (Amicbase) to find out new hints on their mechanism of action. The selected compounds possess strong inhibitory activities in vitro against Candida species either in the agar diffusion test, bioautography, agar dilution test, serial dilution test, or activity in the vapour phase. The test conditions are listed thoroughly and aspects of the different methods and recent developments in the testing of anticandidal drugs are discussed. The anticandidal spectra of drugs, antiseptics, and disinfectants licensed on the major markets are given for comparison of activities with compounds from natural sources. So far known mechanisms of action are described and some new structure-activity relationships are deduced from relationships between biological activities and chemical and physical parameters. Main specific targets of natural anticandidals are the ergosterol pathway, respiratory chain, and chitin biosynthesis.

Synthesis of indolizidines and pyrrolizidines through the [2 + 2]cycloaddition of five-membered endocyclic enecarbamates to alkyl ketenes. Unusual regioselectivity of Baeyer-Villiger ring expansions of alkyl aza-bicyclic cyclobutanones

The total syntheses of two indolizidine skeletons and of the necine base (+/-)-platynecine were accomplished in a concise manner with good overall yields starting from a common five-membered endocyclic enecarbamate. These syntheses feature a [2 + 2]cycloaddition of the five-membered endocyclic enecarbamate 5 to alkylketenes that proceeded in high yields and with high stereoselectivity to provide an endo alkyl cycloadduct as the major or only product. The minor exo alkyl cycloadducts, which can be observed in some [2 + 2]cycloadditions, seem to derive from the endo cycloadduct, the putative kinetic product, by epimerization. An unusual regioselectivity was observed for the Baeyer-Villiger oxidation of 7-alkyl-2-azabicyclic cyclobutanones. Endo-7-alkyl cycloadducts ring-expanded exclusively to a gamma-lactone in which oxygen is inserted into the C6-C7 bond in preference to the bridgehead C5-C6 bond. With the exo-7-alkyl cycloadduct the regioselectivity of the Baeyer-Villiger oxidation is drastically reduced, leading to mixtures of regioisomeric lactones in a ratio of approximately 1.5 to 1. It is hypothesized that the steric strain built into the Criegee cyclobutane intermediate is the regioselective controlling factor in these oxidations, overriding any stereoelectronic bias for ring expansion. A rationale for the mechanism of the [2 + 2]cycloaddition involving enecarbamates and ketenes is presented, which seems to involve the participation of an N-acyliminium-enolate intermediate.

Synthesis and absolute configuration of Stellettadine A: a marine alkaloid that induces larval metamorphosis in ascidians

Stellettadine A, a bisguanidinium alkaloid isolated from a marine sponge Stelletta sp. as an inducer of larval metamorphosis in ascidians, and its unnatural enantiomer were synthesized from the enantiomers of citronellal. The absolute configuration of stellettadine A was established as R.