Prodigiosin alkaloids: recent advancements in total synthesis and their biological potential

Abstract

Despite recent developments in combinatorial chemistry and related techniques for facilitating drug discovery and development, natural products continue to play a prominent and evolving role for the development of new therapeutic agents. Pyrrole containing natural products constitute an integral part of this strategy. The structure and reactivity of pyrrole along with its propensity to polymerize renders it a relative speciality and certainly not something for the faint of heart. Besides, the well known tetrapyrrolic “Pigments of life,” other fascinating natural products incorporating multiple copies of the pyrrole ring system are attracting the attention of organic medicinal chemists and must be acknowledged.