Structure elucidation of female-specific volatiles released by the parasitoid wasp Trichogramma turkestanica (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae)

• Armin Tröger,
• Teris A. van Beek,
• Martinus E. Huigens,
• Isabel M. M. S. Silva,
• Maarten A. Posthumus and
• Wittko Francke

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2014, 10, 767–773, doi:10.3762/bjoc.10.72

• turkestanica; volatile deoxypropionates; Introduction Wasps of the genus Trichogramma (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae) are egg parasitoids of insect eggs [1]. They are commercially used as biological control agents against many insect pests, worldwide [2]. The taxonomy of Trichogramma wasps is hampered by

Asymmetric total synthesis of a putative sex pheromone component from the parasitoid wasp Trichogramma turkestanica

• Danny Geerdink,
• Jeffrey Buter,
• Teris A. van Beek and
• Adriaan J. Minnaard

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2014, 10, 761–766, doi:10.3762/bjoc.10.71

• of 4.4%. Keywords: asymmetric catalysis; copper; deoxypropionates; natural products; sex pheromone; Trichogramma turkestanica; Introduction Communication by means of pheromones is common in many animal species. For instance, many insects secrete air-borne volatiles to attract a mate for generating

• strategies is available for the synthesis of deoxypropionates [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Our approach [16] is based on copper-catalyzed asymmetric conjugate addition of methylmagnesium bromide to α,β-unsaturated thioesters and has proven its versatility [17][18][19]. Arrays of up to eight methyl