Idesia polycarpa

Recently Iwabuchi et al. reported the first total synthesis of (—)-idesolide (650) (559), an efficient inhibitor of nitric oxide production induced by lipopolysaccharide in BV2 microglial cells, isolated firom the deciduous tree Idesia polycarpa (560). As idesolide may originate from dimerization of the precursor 651, two major challenges had to be addressed in this investigation. The first was installation of the required absolute configuration in 651 and the second, identifying useful dimerization conditions for this monomeric precursor. Synthesis of 651 could be achieved successfully by carrying out an oxidative kinetic resolution on the easily synthesized racemic... 

Incubations of cell suspension cultures of Idesia polycarpa and of seed tissue ofH. anthelminthic a with [l,2- C]a-ketopimelate proved the validity of the Cl chain elongation mechanism. Although in the systems tested this substrate was metabolized to some extent, cyclopentenylglycine was synthesized at a much higher rate from a-ketopimelate than from acetate. In a control experiment, cell suspension cultures of soya were incubated with [l,2- C]a-ketopimelate or [l- C]acetate, but cyclopentenylglycine was not synthesized in either case (Tober and Spener, 1980). 

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