0000000001164145
AUTHOR
Marisa Nicolai
Acetylcholinesterase and antioxidant evaluation of C18-functionalized ferruginol analogues
Nearly 200 years ago, the study of the chemistry of terpenoids started with the analysis of turpentine oil, investigating the first resin acid, abietic acid from pine oleoresin.[1] Abietic acid occurs in plants of the genus Abies and is the first member of a class of plant metabolites, the abietane-type diterpenoids. They are characterized by a tricyclic ring system and have shown a wide range of chemical diversity and biological activity. [2,3] Medicinal chemists have studied derivatives of two readily available materials such as dehydroabietic acid and dehydroabietylamine. [3] To date, there is only one commercial drug, Ecabet® [ecabet sodium], based on abietanes, which is used for the tr…
Biocatalytic formation of synthetic melanin: The role of vanadium haloperoxidases, L-DOPA and iodide
The vanadium haloperoxidase (V-HPO) enzyme, extracted from the brown alga Laminaria saccharina, is able to catalyze the formation of a black precipitate, using as precursor the amino acid L-dopa in the presence of hydrogen peroxide and iodide, in one-pot synthesis. The L-dopa oxidation is a multistep reaction with a crucial role played by the iodide in the enzyme catalyzed peroxidative production of dopachrome, a well known intermediate in the synthesis of melanin. Dopachrome is then converted to a synthetic form of melanin through a polymerization reaction. Factors, such as buffer composition and pH, influence significantly the reaction first steps, but further steps of melanin production …