The diterpene hydrocarbon rimuene has exercised over the years, the interest of a number of laboratories engaged in natural product research. As is usual with this class of compound its occurrence is confined almost entirely to the native New Zealand flora and although only two types of tree have been used as sources, it has been identified, often only in small amounts, in at least ten different species. Its co-occurrence with other diterpenes of similar chemical and physical properties has often made it hard to isolate and this, together with its geographic distribution has probably tended to limit its availability for research purposes, and hence delayed the elucidation of its structure. The awareness of the existence of this compound of undetermined structure has, therefore, caused a noticable gap in the knowledge of the diterpenoids, and this hiatus has been accentuated by Wenkert who, believing it to have a pimarane skeleton, suggested that it might be the important biogenetic precursor of a number of tetracyclic diterpenoids. Recent work, confirmed by the present investigation has, however, shown that previous structural predictions were incorrect and in actual fact rimuene has a rosane skeleton. As Ruzicka has shown for this class of compound, it has probably been formed from a pimarane diterpenoid and therefore represents a later biogenetic step than the other diterpene hydrocarbons which are always found with it in nature.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/288941 |
| Date | January 1967 |
| Creators | Anderson, Bryan Frederick |
| Publisher | ResearchSpace@Auckland |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated., http://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm, Copyright: The author |
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