It may be difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to recreate natural molecules in the laboratory in an effort to look for possible novel treatments for an illness. Scientists argue that many chemical processes create not just a version of the molecule present in nature, but also a mirror-image form of the molecule that may be worthless or even harmful, Science Daily reports.
But organic chemists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) employed a reactive substance to synthesize only the required form of a novel, possibly medicinal molecule discovered in a marine sponge, making synthesis more efficient and less expensive.
Much of Today's Medicines Are Made From Synthetic Organic Chemistry
According to Mayo Clinic, Parkinson's disease is a progressive neurological disorder that affects the nervous system and the parts of the body controlled by the nerves. Symptoms start gradually, wherein the first symptom may be a barely noticeable tremor in just one hand. Tremors are common, but the disorder may also cause stiffness or slowing of movement.
The disease can not be cured, although medications can help control the symptoms. But perhaps the synthetic molecule by UCLA organic chemists which they identified in a sea sponge may offer therapeutic effects for Parkinson's disease and other neurological illnesses.
The chemical, known as lissodendoric acid A, appears to work against other compounds that may harm DNA, RNA, and proteins, as well as destroy whole cells.
In an unusual twist, the researchers used a long-neglected compound called cyclic allene to control a critical step in the chain of chemical reactions required to produce a usable version of the molecule in the lab. Their study, titled "Total Synthesis of Lissodendoric Acid A via Stereospecific Trapping of a Strained Cyclic Allene," is published in the journal Science.
Neil Garg, the corresponding author of the study, noted that the vast majority of medicines today are made by synthetic organic chemistry and it is one of the academia's roles to establish new chemical reactions that could be used to develop medicines and molecules that will benefit the public.
He said that chirality is a key factor complicating the development of these synthetic organic molecules as many of them can exist in two distinct forms that are chemically identical but are 3D mirror images of each other. Each variant is referred to as an enantiomer in which one may have favorable therapeutic benefits and the other may have no effect.
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Addressing the Challenge of Chirality in Producing Synthetic Organic Compounds
SciTech Daily reports that the team used cyclic allenes as an intermediate in their 12-step reaction approach to solve the chirality and swiftly and effectively manufacture solely the enantiomer of lissodendoric acid A found naturally in nature. These extremely reactive chemicals, discovered in the 1960s, had never before been employed to create molecules of this complexity.
The researchers realized that they could use the compounds' unique properties to create one specific chiral form of cyclic allenes, which led to chemical processes that nearly exclusively created the desired enantiomer of the lissodendoric acid A molecule.
Although this might be the first step in testing whether the molecule may have suitable properties for future therapeutics, the method for synthesizing the molecule is something that could immediately benefit other scientists involved in pharmaceutical research.
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