The advance, by Masayuki Inoue, Masahiro Hirama and colleagues, means that a more abundant supply of ciguatoxin will be available for drug development and other research. In a report scheduled for the August 2 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Inoue and Hirama note that the scanty supply of natural ciguatoxin has been a major barrier to alleviating the disease.
Scientists had to grind and process 8,800 pounds of moray eel to obtain 0.00001 ounce of natural ciguatoxin. In 1989, chemists used that fraction of a drop to determine ciguatoxin's molecular structure. That key step enabled chemists to begin work on ways of making larger quantities of synthetic ciguatoxin. Inoue and Hirama state that their achievement "will accelerate biological studies as well as the development of strategies for controlling ciguatera seafood poisoning."
ARTICLE #1
"Total Synthesis of Ciguatoxin and 51-HydroxyCTX3C"
DOWNLOAD PDF:
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/jacsat/asap/html/ja063041p.html
DOWNLOAD HTML:
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/jacsat/asap/pdf/ja063041p.pdf
CONTACT:
Masayuki Inoue, Ph.D.
Tohoku University
Sendai, Japan
Phone: +81-22-795-6565
Fax: +81-22-795-6563
Email: inoue@ykbsc.chem.tohoku
'"/>
Contact: Michael Woods
m_woods@acs.org
202-872-4400
American Chemical Society
17-Jul-2006