Turns out, some frameworks are overrepresented in nature, making them especially attractive to scientists on the hunt for more effective drugs.

One such structure, known as the carbocyclic 5-8-5 fused ring system, is notoriously difficult to produce using conventional laboratory methods. Researchers, therefore, have been largely unable to tap into its potentially broad therapeutic potential. The researchers at Florida State University have developed an innovative synthetic technique that could unlock these elusive structures, opening the door to a new world of cutting-edge medicinal compounds.

In the study, researchers detailed the modular scheme for producing large quantities of the 5-8-5 ring structure. A synthesis process that was once exceptionally labour- and resource-intensive, they discovered, can be now streamlined into simple steps. "The ubiquity of the 5-8-5 ring system within natural products caught our attention. Our chemistry provides an attractive entry point to natural products harbouring a 5-8-5 ring system," said James Frederich, lead author of the study.

The 5-8-5 framework is composed of two five-sided molecular rings fused to a central 8-sided ring. This unique architecture constitutes the core of more than 30 natural products, several of which have useful, potentially therapeutic effects in human cell cultures. These compounds help stabilize protein-protein interactions i.e. the physical mingling of protein molecules that govern biological processes within a cell. Cyclization substrates, the underlying structures upon which the ring frameworks are built were used to build the framework. The findings are published in the Journal of Chemical Science.