The Fe(iii) complexation properties of ladanein, a potent antiviral flavone, and related analogues (negletein and salvigenin), have been studied in solution under quasi-physiological conditions using physico-chemical tools and provided important insights into their stability/reactivity in solution.

Herein we report a short and economic synthesis of the antiviral flavonoid lead ladanein (1). Ladanein is obtained from 2,6-dimethoxyquinone (11) in six steps with 51% overall yield. After a high-yielding reductive acetylation and Fries rearrangement, the flavone skeleton is built by means of a Baker–Venkataraman rearrangement. Throughout the synthetic pathway no chromatographic columns were used, and the reaction products were isolated and purified by optimized work-up and crystallization processes. This new process has been tested on a multigram-scale with an improved overall yield from 16 to 51% through six steps, and three chromatographic purifications used in the earlier synthesis were eliminated.