BUILDING AND DECODING NITROGEN-CONTAINING NATURAL PRODUCTS

Nitrogen heterocycles are extremely popular among natural products.[1] Elucidating such complex molecules is often hard and requires different analytical techniques. Our work on the full characterization of safracin B alongside the study of the functional group interconversion on its hemiaminal moiety to form the cyano derivative, an important precursor in the synthesis of the antitumoral drug trabectedin,[2] aims to fill the gap in literature regarding the structural elucidation of this family of alkaloids. Alongside characterization, building decorated N-heterocycles in a mild and selective fashion is a challenge extremely crucial in both natural compounds total synthesis and medicinal chemistry.[3-4] With that in mind, during my abroad period at the University of Bayreuth, our work on the photochemical cyclization of aceto hydrazides through an EDA complex formed between thianthrenium salts and triphenylamine highlights the possibility of synthetizing different N-heterocycles through a single reaction protocol that also simplifies the preparation of bifunctional compounds such as drug conjugates.