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Mussel power: The structures and configurations have been determined of four new indole alkaloids, notoamides A–D, which were isolated from mussel‐derived Aspergillus sp. Notoamides A–C show moderate cytotoxicity against cancer cell lines. The relationship between these and other metabolites suggests that the fungus uses a diverse biosynthetic pathway.

In Nature, chiral natural products are usually produced in optically pure form; however, on occasion Nature is known to produce enantiomerically opposite metabolites. These enantiomeric natural products can arise in Nature from a single species, or from different genera and/or species. Extensive research has been carried out over the years in an attempt to understand the biogenesis of naturally occurring enantiomers, however, many fascinating puzzles and stereochemical anomalies still remain.

The efficient total synthesis of the recently described natural substance largazole (1) and it’s active metabolite largazole thiol (2) is described. The synthesis required eight linear steps and proceeded in 37% overall yield. It is demonstrated that largazole is a pro-drug, that is activated by removal of the octanoyl residue from the 3-hydroxy-7-mercaptohept-4-enoic acid moiety to generate the active metabolite largazole thiol (2) which is an extraordinarily potent Class I histone deacetylase inhibitor. Synthetic largazole and the largazole thiol (2) have been evaluated side-by-side with FK228 and SAHA for inhibition of HDACs 1, 2, 3, and 6. Largazole and largazole thiol were further assayed for cytotoxic activity against a panel of chemoresistant melanoma cell lines and it was found that largazole is substantially more cytotoxic than largazole thiol; this difference being attributed to differences in cell permeability of the two substances, respectively.

Nature's repertoire of biosynthetic transformations has recently been recognized to include the Diels-Alder cycloaddition reaction. Evidence now exists that there are enzymes that mediate the Diels-Alder reaction in secondary metabolic biosynthetic pathways. 2002 marked the 100th anniversary of Alder's birth and 75 years since the discovery of the Diels-Alder reaction. It would appear that living systems discovered and made use of this ubiquitously useful ring-forming reaction eons ago for the construction of complex natural products. In this Review an overview is given of all of the known classes of natural products (polyketides, isoprenoids, phenylpropanoids, alkaloids) that have been speculated to arise by a biological Diels-Alder reaction.