AUTHOR=Camp Jason E. , Greatrex Ben W. TITLE=Levoglucosenone: Bio-Based Platform for Drug Discovery JOURNAL=Frontiers in Chemistry VOLUME=10 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/chemistry/articles/10.3389/fchem.2022.902239 DOI=10.3389/fchem.2022.902239 ISSN=2296-2646 ABSTRACT=

Levoglucosone (LGO) is a bio-privileged molecule that can be produced on scale from waste biomass. This chiral building block has been converted via well-established chemical processes into previously difficult-to-synthesize building blocks such as enantiopure butenolides, dihydropyrans, substituted cyclopropanes, deoxy-sugars and ribonolactones. LGO is an excellent starting material for the synthesis of biologically active compounds, including those which have anti-cancer, anti-microbial or anti-inflammatory activity. This review will cover the conversion of LGO to biologically active compounds as well as provide future research directions related to this platform molecule.