Benzenediol lactones: a class of fungal metabolites with diverse structural features and biological activities

Benzenediol lactones are a structurally variable family of fungal polyketide metabolites possessing a macrolide core structure fused into a resorcinol aromatic ring. These compounds are widespread in fungi mainly in the genera such as Aigialus, Cochliobolus, Curvularia, Fusarium, Humicola, Lasiodiplodia, Penicillium and Pochonia etc. Most of these fungal metabolites were reported to possess several interesting biological activities, such as cytotoxicities, nematicidal properties, inhibition of various kinases, receptor agonists, anti-inflammatory activities, heat shock response and immune system modulatory activities etc. This review summarizes the research on the isolation, structure elucidation, and biological activities of the benzenediol lactones, along with some available structure-activity relationships, biosynthetic studies, first syntheses, and syntheses that lead to the revision of structure or stereochemistry, published up to the year of 2014. More than 190 benzenediol lactones are described, and over 300 references cited.