Recent Progress in Syntheses and Biological Activities of Kainic Acid and its Derivatives

Kainic acid and related members of kainoid family are amino acid-terpene hybrid natural products with three stereocenters and promising bioactivities. Kainoids have been isolated from diverse marine and terrestrial organisms and all of them feature a 3-carboxymethyl proline and C-4 side chain. The decorative molecular structure and intriguing biological profile of kainic acid inspired the synthetic chemists in engineering the new protocol for its asymmetric total syntheses. This article provides an account of research on kainic acid and few selective kainic acid inspired molecules, including their isolation, total synthesis, biological and structure activity relationship (SAR) studies. Particularly, the synthetic endeavours towards the building of kainic acid reported during the period 2012 till mid 2015 have been highlighted.