Description

The pheromones are semiochemical compounds secreted outside by an organism that cause a specific reaction to a receiving organism from the same species. These compounds are classified on the basis of the kind of interaction they induce, such as sex pheromones, of alarm, of aggregation, of trail, etc. The sex pheromones are the best-known semiochemicals, specially because of their helpful in programs of integrated pest control. The use of sex pheromones as an alternative to the use of conventional insecticides in pest control is due to its innocuousness features, high specificity and the use in small quantities. In this regard and inside an integrated pest control, the first application of the sex pheromones has been in the detection of the appearance of pests and the knowledge of the infestation's level. They have also been used as a direct mean of fighting in males' mass captures with baited traps with pheromones, reducing the pest population in the countryside with them. Other ways of pheromones applications are the concentration of insects toward specific plots and subsequent treatment of those with conventional insecticides, and the sexual confusion that consists in spreading lots of pheromones in the environment, which makes the encounter of males and females more difficult. The design of new methods or ways of synthesis of pheromones or related compounds is one of the areas of the Organic Synthesis in which more efforts have been made over the past few years. The chemical nature of the pheromones is very diverse, including, among many other compounds, saturated and unsaturated alcohol, macrolactones, carbocycles of different sizes, oxacycles, cyclic acetal, etc. The interest in these compounds has determined a development of new steroselective synthesis methods for this kind of structures by our group, such as carbocycles from organosilicon and oxacycles by electrolytic cyclization of hydroxy alkenes, by nucleophilic cyclization of hydroxy epoxides or by silyl-Prins cyclization.

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