Biological Activities and Synthetic Advances of Phaseic Acid
Received date: 2026-04-04
Online published: 2026-06-25
Supported by
Key Project of College Students’ Innovation Training, Zhengzhou Normal University(DCZ2024006)
Key Science and Technology Research Program of Henan Province(252102110161)
Key Science and Technology Research Program of Henan Province(252102110279)
Key Scientific Research Project of Colleges and Universities in Henan Province(23A360027)
Key Scientific Research Project of Colleges and Universities in Henan Province(25B210016)
National Natural Science Foundation of China(22401138)
Phaseic acid (PA), a key oxidative metabolite of the essential plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) with a unique rigid oxa-bicyclic skeleton, was long regarded merely as an inactive terminal catabolite responsible for ABA signal termination and metabolic clearance in plants. However, accumulating functional and structural evidence over the past decade has definitively established PA as an independent bioactive signaling molecule with distinct physiological functions: in plants, it acts as a biased ligand that selectively activates PYL2-PYL6 subtypes of ABA receptors to precisely regulate seed dormancy, germination inhibition and plant adaptive responses to prolonged drought and salinity stresses; in mammalian systems, endogenous PA has been identified as a potent endogenous neuroprotective agent that alleviates cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury via reversible inhibition of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors, showing great potential for ischemic stroke therapeutic development. The remarkable dual applications in crop drought resistance breeding and neuroprotective drug discovery have generated an urgent demand for efficient chemical synthesis of PA, which is severely hindered by its extremely low natural abundance, three contiguous stereogenic centers and the challenging construction of the characteristic rigid fused oxa-bicyclic framework. This review systematically summarizes the landmark advances in the total synthesis of PA since its first isolation and structural characterization in 1960, covering the first racemic synthesis in 1986, the first optically pure synthesis in 1989 and the recent shortest linear sequence of only 7-step highly efficient asymmetric synthesis, with particular emphasis on the stereoselective construction of the conjugated diene side chain and synthetic strategies for PA methyl ester derivatives. The design rationale, core reaction technologies and key intermediates, stereocontrol mechanisms as well as the inherent advantages and practical limitations of representative synthetic routes are comprehensively discussed, aiming to provide systematic theoretical support for the in-depth functional mechanism research, structural modification and cost-effective large-scale industrial application of PA and its derivatives.
Key words: phaseic acid; abscisic acid; plant hormone; sesquiterpene; total synthesis
Fangyi Su , Yan Zhang , Chengqing Ning , Jing Xu . Biological Activities and Synthetic Advances of Phaseic Acid[J]. Acta Chimica Sinica, 2026 , 84(7) : 1165 -1174 . DOI: 10.6023/A26040104
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