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This review covers the isolation and structure determination of triterpenoids including squalene derivatives, lanostanes, holostanes, cycloartanes, cucurbitanes, dammaranes, euphanes, tirucallanes, tetranortriterpenoids, quassinoids, lupanes, oleananes, friedelanes, ursanes, hopanes, onoceranes and saponins; 308 references are cited.

Indian Neem tree is known for its pesticidal and medicinal properties for centuries. Structure elucidation of large number of secondary metabolites responsible for its diverse properties has been achieved. However, this data is spread over various books, scientific reports and publications and difficult to access. We have compiled and stored structural details of neem metabolites in NeeMDB, a database which can be easily accessed, queried and downloaded. NeeMDB would be central in dissipating structural information of neem secondary metabolites world over. Background: Neem tree (Azadirachta indica A. Juss), native to Indian sub-continent, has long been recognized for its pesticidal and medicinal properties[1, 2]. It has gained the distinction of being the most researched tree in the World. Extracts of neem fruit, seeds, seed kernels, twigs, stem bark and root bark have been shown to possess repellent, anti-feedant, insect growth regulatory (IGR), anti ovipositional, fecundity and fitness reducing properties on insects [3]. Many species of insects are known to be sensitized by neem formulations [3, 4]. Diverse biological properties of neem are due to many secondary metabolites found in various parts of the tree. Major constituents of its metabolite pool such as Azadirachtin, Azadirone, Gedunin, Meliacarpin, Nimbin, Salannin, Vilasinin groups were proved to be significant pesticidal and/or medicinal principle [5]. Crude extracts of neem are found to be more potent than pure Azadirachtin [6] suggesting there are many more compounds in the neem extract, which even at low concentration have potentiating abilities.

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This review covers the isolation and structure determination of triterpenoids including squalene derivatives, protostanes, lanostanes, holostanes, cycloartanes, dammaranes, euphanes, tirucallanes, tetranortriterpenoids, lupanes, oleananes, friedelanes, ursanes, hopanes, isomalabaricanes and saponins; 574 references are cited.