Yang You, Laval Stephane, Yu Biao
Shanghai Key Laboratory of New Drug Design, School of Pharmacy, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, PR China.
State Key Laboratory of Bio-Organic and Natural Products Chemistry, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, PR China.
Adv Carbohydr Chem Biochem. 2021;79:63-150. doi: 10.1016/bs.accb.2021.10.001.
Saponins are a large family of amphiphilic glycosides of steroids and triterpenes found in plants and some marine organisms. By expressing a large diversity of structures on both sugar chains and aglycones, saponins exhibit a wide range of biological and pharmacological properties and serve as major active principles in folk medicines, especially in traditional Chinese medicines. Isolation of saponins from natural sources is usually a formidable task due to the microheterogeneity of saponins in Nature. Chemical synthesis can provide access to large amounts of natural saponins as well as congeners for understanding their structure-activity relationships and mechanisms of action. This article presents a comprehensive account on chemical synthesis of saponins. First highlighted are general considerations on saponin synthesis, including preparation of aglycones and carbohydrate building blocks, assembly strategies, and protecting-group strategies. Next described is the state of the art in the synthesis of each type of saponins, with an emphasis on those representative saponins having sophisticated structures and potent biological activities.
皂苷是一类存在于植物和一些海洋生物中的由甾体和三萜组成的两亲性糖苷大家族。通过在糖链和苷元上展现出多种多样的结构，皂苷呈现出广泛的生物学和药理学特性，并作为民间药物尤其是传统中药中的主要活性成分。由于自然界中皂苷的微不均一性，从天然来源分离皂苷通常是一项艰巨的任务。化学合成可以提供大量的天然皂苷及其类似物，以了解它们的构效关系和作用机制。本文全面介绍了皂苷的化学合成。首先重点介绍皂苷合成的一般考虑因素，包括苷元及碳水化合物结构单元的制备、组装策略和保护基策略。接下来描述了各类皂苷合成的现状，重点介绍了那些具有复杂结构和强大生物活性的代表性皂苷。
