Cover Feature: Bioinspired Transformations Using Strictosidine Aglycones: Divergent Total Syntheses of Monoterpenoid Indole Alkaloids in the Early Stage of Biosynthesis (Chem. Eur. J. 10/2022)

Strictosidine is an important molecule in the biosynthesis of higher plants that gives rise to a great variety of structures. A series of bioinspired transformations that are applied to convert strictosidine aglycones into monoterpenoid indole alkaloids is reported. In this image, the strictosidine aglycon is depicted as a gavel that produces treasure in Japanese folktales to represent the production of various natural products from a single molecule. The natural products produced in this study will be very useful as a library for drug discovery. More information can be found in the Research Article by J. Sakamoto and H. Ishikawa (DOI: 10.1002/chem.202104052).