As of early 2013, over 200 natural products are known to contain a nitrogen-nitrogen (N-N) bond. This report categorizes these compounds by structural class and details their isolation and biological activity.

The spiroindimicins are a family of structurally unprecedented alkaloids isolated from the deep-sea-derived marine actinomycete Streptomyces sp. SCSIO 03032. The total syntheses of (±)-spiroindimicins B and C are disclosed, the first of any member of this family. Central to the successful strategy was installing the spirocentre using a mild intramolecular Heck reaction, the assembly of a pentacyclic spirobisindole by Fischer indolization and a late-stage Schöllkopf-Magnus-Barton-Zard (SMBZ) reaction to construct the trisubstituted pyrrole.

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The natural product montamine was originally assigned as a homodimer of moschamine linked by a N-N' bond at the serotonin side-chain. A total synthesis of the reported structure has shown this to be incorrect. Analysis of the spectroscopic data suggests that the dimerization site has been incorrectly assigned, and montamine is likely to be a 4,4'-bismoschamine natural product previously described in the literature.

No abstract