A Review on zerumbone and its semisynthetic Analogs: Synthesis and Implications in Medicinal chemistry.

Natural products and their semisynthetic analogs have long standing history in generating and identifying lead and drug candidates for various therapeutic areas. Zerumbone 1, a unique 11 membered monocyclic sesquiterpene natural product is isolated from Zingiber zerumbet (L. Smith) and related species. The presence of divinyl ketone along with an isolated double bond with all trans double bond geometries, provides great opportunities to create unique and complex molecular scaffolds. Various chemistries to synthesize semisynthetic analogs and their biological properties are discussed in detail. Broad spectrum biological activities and identified potential targets for zerumbone could potentially lead to the generation of lead compounds for therapeutic applications especially for cancer.