Brassinolide aspects

This brief review covers the period of the last ten years in the development of brassinosteroid chemistry in our laboratory. Our interest has been focused on the synthesis of natural brassinosteroids (brassinolide, homobrassinoli-de, epibrassinolide, norbrassinolide, etc.), their analogues and intermediates starting from stigmasterol, ergosterol, or pregnenolone. Some aspects of biological activity are discussed. 

It has been reported that brassinolide (BR) has some actions similar to auxin and cytokinin (7). In order to compare the physiological effects of BR in these respects and to determine if this is so, we studied three aspects as follows ... 

Because brassinolide, and probably other brassinosteroids, occurs in pollen, other aspects which may affect plant, insect, and animal physiology will have to be considered in the future. For example, what about the effects of brassinosteroid laced nectar and pollen to foraging birds and insects It will be recalled that the collection of sufficient rape pollen to isolate brassinolide came not from manual collection, but from pollen collected by honeybees (4). That fact leads to at least three thoughts. 

Meudt, W. j.. Chemical and biological aspects of brassinolide, in Ecology and Metabolism of Plant Lipids (G. Fuller and W. 

Grove MD, Spencer GF, Rohwedder WK, Mandava N, Worley JF, Warthen JD Jr Steffens GL, Flippen-Anderson JL, Cook JC Jr (1979) Brassinolide, a plant growth-promoting steroid isolated from Brassica napus pollen. Nature 281 216-217 Gunning BES, Pate JS (1974) Transfer cells. In Robards Aw (ed) Dynamic aspects of plant ultrastructure. McGraw-Hill, London, pp 441-480... 

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