Structural Characterization of Marine-Derived Compounds

Dear Colleagues,

Organic molecules with chiral centers are commonly found in natural products research. Therefore, stereochemical elucidation of natural products is an important prerequisite for novel drug research and development. To date, many methods including general nuclear magnetic resonance parameters (NMR) spectroscopic experiment, chemical reactions, quantum chemical calculations, X-ray diffraction, and others or various combinations of these have been used to assign configurations of natural products. However, the configurations are still a challenge due to unstable conformations. Some compounds were not identified correctly. For example, some NOESY data could give a confused relationship because of the complex multiring system or more than one stable confirmation. Otherwise, there is a strong need for improving the configuration determination methods.

On the other hand, the configurations of the flexible structure are very difficult to achieve because of the special skeletons in which free rotation of the linear fragment due to C-C single bond generates much conformations and ultimately result in the difficulty of molecular configuration assignation. There are many trials to determine flexible structure configurations. However, except for chemical reactions and X-ray diffraction, these techniques are difficult to use for flexible molecules because they generate numerous complex and unpredictable conformations. Therefore, it is still a great challenge to accurately determine stereochemistry of flexible molecules, especially in the molecules with multiple chiral centers.

A correct configuration assignment of the right compound is crucial for the structure determination and related research. Additionally, it is an intriguing and state-of-the-art research topic.

Dr. Pinglin Li
Dr. Xiuli Xu
Dr. Faliang An
Guest Editors

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