Abstract
This review involves the synthetic studies on the salamander alkaloids isolated from an animal venom in the skin gland of Salamandra maculosa Laurenti. Syntheses of three groups of the alkaloids, one with a bicyclo-oxazolidine system, one with a carbinolamine system, and another with a pure 3-aza-A-homo steroid system, are discussed separately. It will be emphasized that the synthetic works described herein made a considerable contribution to the structure analyses of this field of alkaloids and earlier proposed structures based on X-ray and spectroscopic analyses have been changed step by step. Regio and stereospecific syntheses of the alkaloids are mainly discussed in connection with the construction of the bicyclo-oxazolidine system of the major alkaloids and with Beckmann rearrangement of steroid 3-ketoximes for the syntheses of the other alkaloids.
