Fenja L. Duecker, Franziska Reuß and Philipp Heretsch
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2019,17, 1624-1633
DOI:
10.1039/C8OB02325E,
Review Article
Classical steroids are long-known privileged leads in drug discovery. Their rearranged counterparts, though, have so far received less attention, although recent isolation and biological testing programmes have revealed a plethora of molecular entities that are both structurally intriguing, as well as biologically relevant. This review will highlight those natural products, and focus on ergostane-derived seco- and abeo-steroids. Their isolation, structure elucidation, and biological properties are reported. A special emphasis of this review lies in their respective (and typically proposed) biosyntheses, to help guide future bio-inspired synthetic attempts.