Isolation of lignans as seed germination and plant growth inhibitors from Mediterranean plants and chemical synthesis of some analogues

Lignans and lignins are among the main metabolic products of phenylpropanoid metabolism in vascular plants. They are compounds representing the building blocks of plant cell walls. Moreover they have a broad range of biological activities such as antitumoral, antimitotic, antiviral and cytotoxic and are thought to be involved in the plant defense against pathogens and pests. In this paper we report a survey of the past and current literature about lignans and neolignans and their germination inhibitory activity on cultivated and wild species from plants of the Mediterranean area. Some examples of synthetic methodologies of these molecules have also been reported.