The molecule malabaricane and its derivatives, the malabaricanes, are

triterpene Triterpenes are a class of chemical compounds composed of three terpene units with the molecular formula C30H48; they may also be thought of as consisting of six isoprene units. Animals, plants and fungi all produce triterpenes, including squa ...

and

triterpenoid Triterpenes are a class of chemical compounds composed of three terpene units with the molecular formula C30H48; they may also be thought of as consisting of six isoprene units. Animals, plants and fungi all produce triterpenes, including squal ...

compounds found in various organisms. They are named after the rain forest tree '' Ailanthus malabarica'' (''Ailanthus triphysa''), from which they were first isolated in 1967 by scientists at the

National Chemical Laboratory The National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) is an Indian government laboratory based in Pune, in western India. Popularly known as NCL, a constituent member of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) India, it was established in 1 ...

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. Later, great varieties of malabaricanes were discovered in other organisms, mostly in marine sponges such as '' Rhabdastrella globostellata''. Isomalabaricanes are malabaricanes in which the three

carbon ring In organic chemistry, an alicyclic compound contains one or more all-carbon rings which may be either saturated or unsaturated, but do not have aromatic character. Alicyclic compounds may have one or more aliphatic side chains attached. The ...

s of the molecule are connected in '' trans−syn−trans'' conformation, as opposed to other malabaricanes, where the rings are connected in ''trans−anti−trans'' conformation. They are of particular research interest because many of them have been reported to show anti-tumour activity in cell culture.

References

Triterpenes {{Organic-compound-stub