ABSTRACT
Although Taxol is now the best-known and most studied member of the taxane diterpenoids, or taxoids, it is only one of over 100 members of this class of compound. A knowledge of the structures of other taxoids is important to the development of new Taxol analogues, since many of them can be modified chemically by the methods described by Holton in Chapter 5 to yield Taxol analogues with modified ring systems. In addition, Taxol itself can be modified in various ways by careful manipulation of its functional groups. This chapter thus covers the fundamental chemistry necessary to develop new Taxol analogues. A complete discussion of the preparation of various analogues and the structure-activity relationships of these compounds is provided in Chapters 5 and 13. The literature coverage of this chapter is complete through June 1993, with a few key references added in January 1994.
