Studies in Natural Products Chemistry
Bioactive Natural Products (Part M)
Studies in Natural Products Chemistry Series

Natural products present in the plant and animal kingdom offer a huge diversity of chemical structures which are the result of biosynthetic processes that have been modulated over the millennia through genetic effects. With the rapid developments in spectroscopic techniques and accompanying advances in high-throughput screening techniques, it has become possible to isolate, determine the structures and biological activity of natural products rapidly, thus opening up exciting new opportunities in the field of new drug development to the pharmaceutical industry.

The present volume contains 22 articles written by leading experts in natural product chemistry on biologically active natural products. It includes research on a variety of different classes of natural products including sesquiterpenes, quassinoids, diterpenoids, lignans, oligostilbenes, phenylethanoids, phenylpropanoid glycosides, curcumin analogues, glycosphingolipids etc. Many of these have been found to be active in a number of different disease conditions.

Foreword Preface Contributors Focus on fluorescent proteinsStructure, function and mode of action of select arthropod neuropeptidesNatural products as modulators of apoptosis and their role in inflammationSesquiterpenes classified as phytoalexinsBioactive triterpenes and related compounds from celastraceaeStructure-activity relationships of sesquiterpene lactonesSynthetic investigations in the field of drimane sesquiterpenoidsQuassinoids: Structure diversity, biological activity and synthetic studiesThe diterpenoids from the genus SideritisRecent developments in the asymmetric synthesis of lignansNatural oligostilbenesIsolation, structure elucidation and bioactivities of phenylethanoid glycosides from Cistanche, Forsythia and Plantago plantsPharmacological activities of phenylpropanoids glycosidesDevelopment of tubulin inhibitors as antimitotic agents for cancer therapyCholesterol biosynthesis inhibitors of microbial originStructure-activity relationships of curcumin and its analogs with different biological activitiesThe Vinca alkaloids: From biosynthesis and accumulation in plant cells, to uptake, activity and metabolism in animal cellsThe chemistry of Olea EuropaeaThe chemistry of the genus Cicer L.New research and development on the Formosan annonaceous plantsStructural and functional aspects of fungal glycosphingolipidsPhytochemical studies and pharmacological activities of plants in genus Hedyotis/OldeanlandiaSubject Index

Natural product chemists, medicinal chemists, pharmacologists as well as researchers particularly those in academica and in the pharmaceutical industry.

Atta-ur-Rahman, Professor Emeritus, International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences (H. E. J. Research Institute of Chemistry and Dr. Panjwani Center for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research), University of Karachi, Pakistan, was the Pakistan Federal Minister for Science and Technology (2000-2002), Federal Minister of Education (2002), and Chairman of the Higher Education Commission with the status of a Federal Minister from 2002-2008. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London (FRS) and an UNESCO Science Laureate. He is a leading scientist with more than 1283 publications in several fields of organic chemistry.

* Timely reviews written by international authorities in the field* Topics ranging from purely chemical to very biological* The 13th volume in the series to be devoted to bioactive natural products