The first review describes examples of very promising compounds discovered from plants acquired from Africa, Southeast Asia, the Americas, and the Caribbean region with potential anticancer activity. These include plant secondary metabolites of the diphyllin lignan, penta[b]benzofuran, triterpenoid, and tropane alkaloid types. The second review presents 40 more erythrinan alkaloids, which were either new or were missed out in the last major reviews, bringing to a total of 154 known erythrinan alkaloids known to date. The reported pharmacological activities of the new and known alkaloids showed a greater bias towards central nervous system and related activities. Other prominent activities reported were antifeedant or insecticidal, cytotoxicity/antitumor/anticancer/estrogenic, antiprotozoal, antiinflammatory, antioxidant, antifungal and antiviral activities.

In this book, chemical studies are described mainly from literature reports appearing since 2000, inclusive of investigations performed by the present authors, on the diversity in secondary metabolites of Ligularia growing in the Hengduan Mountains area of China, focusing on eremophilane sesquiterpenoids and other metabolites. More than 100 Ligularia species and their related genera in the plant family Senecioneae plants (Cremanthodium, Cacalia, Senecio, and others) grow in East Asia. For many years, researchers have studied the chemical constituents of these plants, and terpenoids, flavonoids, steroids, alkaloids, and aromatic compounds have been isolated. Among these, in particular, numerous sesquiterpenoids were reported. Within this book terpenoids and aromatic compounds (total 1049), both previously unknown and known, are presented. Finally, genetic studies and synthesis investigations are briefly reviewed.

The first contribution describes apolar and polar molecular fossils and, in particular biomarkers, along the lines usually followed in organic chemistry textbooks, and points to their bioprecursors when available. Thus, the apolar compounds are divided in linear and branched alkanes followed by alicyclic compounds and aromatic and heterocyclic molecules, and, in particular, the geoporphyrins. The polar molecular fossils contain as functional groups or constituent units ethers, alcohols, phenols, carbonyl groups, flavonoids, quinones, and acids, or are polymers like kerogen, amber, melanin, proteins, or nucleic acids. The final sections discuss the methodology used and the fundamental processes encountered by the biomolecules described, including diagenesis, catagenesis, and metagenesis. The second contribution covers the distribution of phthalides in nature and the findings in the structural diversity, chemical reactivity, biotransformations, syntheses, and bioactivity of natural and semisynthetic phthalides.

The book summarizes important aspects of cheminformatics that are relevant for natural product research. It highlights cheminformatics tools that help to match natural products with their respective biological targets or off-targets, and discusses the potential and limitations of this approach.

The volumes of this classic series, now referred to simply as "Zechmeister" after its founder, L. Zechmeister, have appeared under the Springer Imprint ever since the series' inauguration in 1938. It is therefore not really surprising to find out that the list of contributing authors, who were awarded a Nobel Prize, is quite long: Kurt Alder, Derek H.R. Barton, George Wells Beadle, Dorothy Crowfoot-Hodgkin, Otto Diels, Hans von Euler-Chelpin, Paul Karrer, Luis Federico Leloir, Linus Pauling, Vladimir Prelog, with Walter Norman Haworth and Adolf F.J. Butenandt serving as members of the editorial board. The volumes contain contributions on various topics related to the origin, distribution, chemistry, synthesis, biochemistry, function or use of various classes of naturally occurring substances ranging from small molecules to biopolymers. Each contribution is written by a recognized authority in his field and provides a comprehensive and up-to-date review of the topic in question. Addressed to biologists, technologists and chemists alike, the series can be used by the expert as a source of information and literature citations and by the non-expert as a means of orientation in a rapidly developing discipline.

The objective of this ASI was to bring together specialists in several complex variables (many of whom have contributed to complex potential theory) and specialists in potential theory (all of whom have contributed to several complex variables) together with young researchers and graduate students for an interchange of ideas and techniques. Not only was the status of current research presented, but also the relevant background, much of which is not yet available in books. The following topics and interconnections among them were discussed: 1. Real and Complex Potential Theory. Capacity and approximation, basic prop erties of plurisubharmonic functions and methods to manipulate their singularities and study their growth, Green functions, Chebyshev-type quadratures, electrostatic fields and potentials, propagation of smallness. 2. Complex Dynamics. Review of complex dynamics in one variable, Julia sets, Fatou sets, background in several variables, Henon maps, ergodicity, use of potential theory and multifunctions. 3. Banach Algebras and Infinite Dimensional Holomorphy. Analytic multi functions, spectral theory, analytic functions on a Banach space, semigroups of holomor phic isometries, Pick interpolation on uniform algebras and Von Neumann inequalities for operators on a Hilbert space. The basic notion of complex potential theory is that of a plurisubharmonic function.