Over the past decade, polyhydroxylated indolizidine alkaloids have received considerable attention because of their interesting structures and their diverse biological activities (e.g., antiviral, antitumor, and immunomodulating activities). The most well-known member swainsonine, a natural product isolated from Swainsona canescens, is a potential chemotherapeutic agent for the treatment of cancer and accordingly has attracted much synthetic effort. Numerous syntheses documented to date are based on carbohydrate starting materials or asymmetric reactions using non-carbohydrate substrates. Although some syntheses are efficient and useful, further development of general and practical methods for the preparation of natural and unnatural polyhydroxylated indolizidine products is of great importance. The synthetic progresses of swainsonine are summarized in this paper.

Key words: synthesis, anticanc, swainsonine