Screening methods for natural products with antimicrobial activity: a review of the literature.

In the twelve years since the first review article dealing with chemical constituents of the Hepaticae appeared in this series as Volume 42 (19), several short reviews concerned with chemical constituents of bryophytes have been published (22, 96, 144, 265, 271, 647, 649, 650) In 1988, a Symposium on Chemistry and Chemical Taxonomy of Bryophytes was organised on the behalf of the Phytochemical Society of Europe; the proceedings of this meeting appeared as a book entitled Bryophytes: Their Chemistry and Chemical Taxonomy (651) The symposium concerned itself with phytochemical, biochemical, botanical, chemotaxonomical, pharmaceutical, biotechnological and environmental aspects of bryophytes as well as with the synthesis of the terpenoids and aromatic compounds bryophytes elaborate The physiological and biochemical aspects of bryophytes have also been described in a recent book Bryophytes Development: Physiology and Biochemistry (139)

Chemical Constituents of the Bryophytes

This paper reviews the literature on recent antimicrobial plant products (1978–1988) and medicinal plants used for the treatment of infectious diseases. The review includes accounts of extracts, essential oils and other active principles isolated from plants that have been used in folk medicine as antimicrobial agents. The name and part of the plants studied, the spectrum of activity, type of active compounds and methods used are discussed, as are their mechanisms of action.

A review of some antimicrobial compounds isolated from medicinal plants reported in the literature 1978–1988

During the growth and development of vascular plants, specific phenylpropanoid metabolites differentially accumulate in particular tissues and/or cells of specialized function(s). Examples include the deposition of lignins in xylem tissue and vascular bundles and suberins in suberized cells, the accumulation of flavonoids in vacuolar and sometimes in wall compartments, and the ester attachment of hydroxycinnamic acids to arabinoxylans in the cell wall. Many of these metabolites confer unique properties to particular tissues or cells without which the competitive survival of vascular plants would be severely, if not fatally, compromised.

Phenylpropanoid Metabolism: Biosynthesis of Monolignols, Lignans and Neolignans, Lignins and Suberins

13C NMR shielding data for about 300 compounds are tabulated, and critical spectral features are discussed as a guide to the use of the technique in structure elucidation and stereochemical allocations of lignan, neolignan and their derivatives. Unanalysed reported data have been analysed and, wherever necessary, 13C signal assignments have been revised on the basis of more recent evidence and, to obtain consistency throughout the series.

13C NMR Spectroscopy of lignan and neolignan derivatives

Antimicrobial Neolignans of Sassafras randaiense Roots

Optical resolution of (±)-dehydrodiisoeugenol: Structure revision of acuminatin

Two synthetic approaches to cannithrene 1 (1) have been explored. One-pot annelation of 6,8-dimethoxytetralone by first forming a β-keto sulfoxide, then addition of methyl vinyl ketone, gave, unexp...

Steve F. Cheatham

Papers

Antimicrobial Neolignans of Sassafras randaiense Roots

Optical resolution of (±)-dehydrodiisoeugenol: Structure revision of acuminatin

Synthesis and 13C nuclear magnetic resonance assignments of cannithrene 1: a cannabis constituent

Total Synthesis of Notholaenic Acid