title: Natural products synthesis: enabling tools to penetrate Nature's secrets of biogenesis and biomechanism.
abstract: Selected examples from our laboratory of how synthetic technology platforms developed for the total synthesis of several disparate families of natural products was harnessed to penetrate biomechanistic and/or biosynthetic queries is discussed. Unexpected discoveries of biomechanistic reactivity and/or penetrating the biogenesis of naturally occurring substances were made possible through access to substances available only through chemical synthesis. Hypothesis-driven total synthesis programs are emerging as very useful conceptual templates for penetrating and exploiting the inherent reactivity of biologically active natural substances. In many instances, new enabling synthetic technologies were required to be developed. The examples demonstrate the often untapped richness of complex molecule synthesis to provide powerful tools to understand, manipulate and exploit Nature's vast and creative palette of secondary metabolites.
authors: Department of Chemistry, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, United States. rmw@lamar.colostate.edu
authors: Robert M
authors: RM
authors: Williams
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001688:Biological Products / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D056572:Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism / Q000494:pharmacology; D006801:Humans; D009930:Organic Chemicals / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism / Q000494:pharmacology
chemical_list: D001688:Biological Products; D056572:Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors; D009930:Organic Chemicals