AbstractsChemistry

The study of naturally occurring cyclic compounds is one of the most fascinating chapters in Organic Chemistry. The occurrence of a very large number and many types of cyclic compounds in nature, and their seemingly simple relationship with many straight chain compounds has excited the curiosity of many workers. The logical possibility of a common source of simple units for the synthesis of many large and complex compounds has led to all sorts of speculations. We must however admit that we know virtually nothing about the vital synthesis of even the simplest types of compounds. The plant, let alone the animal, is a very complex type of mechanism. The processes taking place within the plant are so many, and perhaps the energy transfers so different from the types met with in the laboratory, that it is difficult to draw definite conclusions from certain experiments. Thus, because a certain plant on being fed with glucose increases say, its sterol content, it does not mean that the plant took the sugar molecules and so rearranged them that sterols were formed. Nor does it tell us just how those sterols were formed, because during that period the plant was carrying out a thousand and one other processes which were in all probability closely tied up with the formation of the sterols. Although the problem is extremely complicated, we try to make certain observations and draw certain conclusions as regards the origin and biogenesis of plant constituents.