Fulvynes

Maria Letizia Ciavatta and co-workers at Istituto di Chimica Biomolecolare in Italy have reported in Tetrahedron on the isolation of fulvyne.

Tetrahedron paper

Mollenyne A

Tadeusz Molinski and colleague at UCSD have reported in Organic Letters on the isolation of mollenyne A which had an IC50 value of 1.3 micrograms/mL against human colon cancer cell lines (HCT-116).

OL paper

Echinopsacetylenes

Hiroshi Nakano and co-workers at NARO Kyushu Okinawa Agricultural Research Center have reported in Organic Letters on the isolation of some thiophene containing natural products that killed termites.

OL paper

A drug for drugs

You may have seen this in C&E News but for those who missed it:  Danishefsky and co-workers have reported in PNAS on a ginseng analog (poly alkyne) that reduces the side effects of chemotherapy and X-ray treatments.  If you look at the data, then I wouldn’t conclude that the compound drastically improved the side effects of taxol, X-ray and other treatments (3-5% improvement in weight loss, etc), but the idea is interesting and it is a start.

 

PNAS paper

Cytopiloyne synthesis

Jinq-Chyi Lee and co-workers at the Institute of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical research in Taiwan have reported in Chemistry a European Journal on a polyne natural product that has anti-diabetic activity.

Chemistry a European Journal paper