[selflearning]

Hello,
I am looking for resources to review biosynthetic reactions for organic chemistry in regards to natural products.  I haven't touched organic in awhile and I wanted to understand how plants and animals may create molecules.

Truly,
Selflearning

[Babcock_Hall]

That is a fairly open ended question, and I am not sure exactly how to answer it.  Any solid biochemistry textbook (Nelson and Cox, Miesfield and McEvoy) will cover the major biosynthetic pathways in mammals and in E. coli.  However, most biochemistry textbooks have only one or two chapters on plants.  They don't cover secondary metabolites, which I suspect is what you are most interested in.  Possibly a plant biochemistry textbook would be a start.

[selflearning]

That is a fairly open ended question, and I am not sure exactly how to answer it.  Any solid biochemistry textbook (Nelson and Cox, Miesfield and McEvoy) will cover the major biosynthetic pathways in mammals and in E. coli.  However, most biochemistry textbooks have only one or two chapters on plants.  They don't cover secondary metabolites, which I suspect is what you are most interested in.  Possibly a plant biochemistry textbook would be a start.

Sorry about the open ended questions.  I will try to find some biochemistry resources for that.  An example of what I was looking into is if zinc is required to turn phenol to benzene, what is a biosynthetic reaction that would do the same thing? 

Are there any natural products textbooks available without access from a university?

[sjb]

Sorry about the open ended questions.  I will try to find some biochemistry resources for that.  An example of what I was looking into is if zinc is required to turn phenol to benzene, what is a biosynthetic reaction that would do the same thing? 

Are there any natural products textbooks available without access from a university?

Of course, just look at reading lists. One of the books we had recommended was Dewick ( https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9780470742761 ) which might be a bit closer to what you're after?

[selflearning]

Sorry about the open ended questions.  I will try to find some biochemistry resources for that.  An example of what I was looking into is if zinc is required to turn phenol to benzene, what is a biosynthetic reaction that would do the same thing? 

Are there any natural products textbooks available without access from a university?

Of course, just look at reading lists. One of the books we had recommended was Dewick ( https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9780470742761 ) which might be a bit closer to what you're after?

I'll try that like what Babcock had recommended.  I was looking for an open access textbook as I'm not with an university.

[spirochete]

I don't know of any open access textbook but McMurry and another author have written a nice little primer on organic mechanisms in biochemistry called the organic chemistry of biological pathways. This book covers very different material from a standard biochemistry textbook.

Harvard also has a great class for pre-meds that covers bioorganic nicely. I don't know how to find their lecture notes. But it is their version of organic chemistry 2 for pre-meds.

I don't know of anything more advanced. Many resources will treat the mechanism itself as trivial. In many cases I think the mechanism is simply not known for certain, and everyone figures that you could speculate just as well as they could. despite the fact that the organic chemist inside of us is always asking "but what is the mechanism??"