Synthesis of verbenachalcone congeners and their biological assessment against activation of the NGF-mediated neurite outgrowth of PC12D cells' activity.

Synthesis of the verbenachalcone derivatives 3-5 involving littorachalcone 2 from diaryl ether 7 enabled an SAR study of enhancement activity against the NGF-mediated neurite outgrowth from PC12D cells. Littorachalcone 2 and o-deoxyverbenachalcone 5 showed similar activity to that of verbenachalcone 1.

Plant-growth inhibitory activity of heliannuol derivatives.

In addition to (+)-, (-)- and (+/-)-heliannuol E, growth-inhibitory activities of five synthetic chromans and four tetrahydrobenzo[b]oxepins were examined against oat and cress. All heliannuol E isomers exhibited similar biological activities against cress, whereas when tested against oat roots, the unnatural optical isomer (+) showed no inhibitory activity. Four brominated chromans and two tetrahydrobenzo[b]oxepin derivatives also showed apparent inhibition against both cress and oat.