Chromanone Lactones: A Neglected Group of Natural Products – Isolation, Structure Elucidation, Bioactivity, and Synthesis

Abstract Chromanone lactones are a diverse family of fungal metabolites, which is biologically linked to tetrahydroxanthones. These compounds exhibit different structures that could be monomeric or dimeric, with different linkages and in combination with other monomers, but also fused to give more complex structures. They have been neglected so far, as they have not been recognized as an original group of natural products and as most of the publications related to these compounds have arisen only since the beginning of the century. In this Review, we discuss the isolation, the structural elucidation, the bioactivity and also the synthesis of chromanone lactones. Moreover, we present a classification of the different compounds of this family.