Total (Bio)synthesis: Strategies of nature and of chemists

Abstract

The biosynthetic pathways to a number of natural products have been reconstituted in vitro using purified enzymes. Many of these molecules have also been synthesized by organic chemists. Here we compare the strategies used by nature and by chemists to reveal the underlying logic and success of each total synthetic approach for some exemplary molecules with diverse biosynthetic origins. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.