ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on one aspect of natural product synthesis development, namely, the use of polymer-supported reagents, scavengers, and various catch-and-release techniques to prepare pure natural products. Synthetic chemistry can provide natural products in quantities far exceeding nature’s supply as well as labeled materials, structural analogs, novel scaffolds, and mimetics. The limit of nature’s supply of a given natural product and its related extraction costs can, in certain circumstances, be prohibitively expensive both in financial and environmental terms. The hydroxamic acid natural product trichostatin A is a potent inhibitor of histone deacetylase. Complex oligosaccharides, both in natural and unnatural arrangements, have long been a source of intellectual stimulation for organic chemists because of their challenging structures. The epothilones have generated wide interest in the scientific community owing to their ability to inhibit tumor cell proliferation by inducing mitotic arrest through microtubule stabilization.
