COMBINATORIAL CHEMISTRY IN INSECTS - A LIBRARY OF DEFENSIVE MACROCYCLIC POLYAMINES

The pupal defensive secretion of the coccinellid beetle Epilachna bore alis is composed principally of a combinatorial Library of macrocyclic polyamines. These compounds constitute a previously unrecognized fami ly of natural products, characterized by extremely Large-ring lactonic structures derived from a small set of (2-hydroxyethylamino)alkanoic acids. The combinatorial assembly of these simple building blocks gene rates a high degree of structural diversity, which is further increase d by slow. spontaneous intramolecular rearrangement of the macrocycles .