The pharmacology and therapeutic potential of (-)-huperzine A

Maung Kyaw Moe Tun, Seth B HerzonDepartment of Chemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USAAbstract: (–)-Huperzine A (1) is an alkaloid isolated from a Chinese club moss. Due to its potent neuroprotective activities, it has been investigated as a candidate for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease. In this review, we will discuss the pharmacology and therapeutic potential of (–)-huperzine A (1). Synthetic studies of (–)-huperzine A (1) aimed at enabling its development as a pharmaceutical will be described.Keywords: Alzheimer's, NMDA, neurodegeneration, natural products, synthesi

Total synthesis and isolation of citrinalin and cyclopiamine congeners

It is said that carbon, the most abundant element in organic matter, supplies life’s quantity, whereas nitrogen supplies its quality. It is therefore unsurprising that many natural products that contain basic nitrogens (alkaloids) are coveted for their benefit to human health. However, nitrogen is known to mire many chemical syntheses because of its basicity and susceptibility to oxidation. This challenge may be heightened by the presence of more than one nitrogen atom in a targeted complex alkaloid, but can be met by the selective introduction and removal of functional groups that mitigate basicity, as highlighted herein with the first chemical syntheses of citrinalin B and cyclopiamine B. The chemical connections that have been realized as a result of these syntheses, in addition to the isolation of both 17-hydroxycitrinalin B and citrinalin C through (13)C feeding studies, supports the existence of a common bicyclo[2.2.2]diazaoctane containing biogenetic precursor to these compounds as has been proposed previously