Communic Acids: Occurrence, Properties and Use as Chirons for the Synthesis of Bioactive Compounds Barrero, Alejandro Herrador Del Pino, María Del Mar Arteaga Burón, Pilar Arteaga, Jesús F. Arteaga, Alejandro F. Communic acids Labdanes Bioactivity Chirons Communic acids are diterpenes with labdane skeletons found in many plant species, mainly conifers, predominating in the genus Juniperus (fam. Cupresaceae). In this review we briefly describe their distribution and different biological activities (anti- bacterial, antitumoral, hypolipidemic, relaxing smooth muscle, etc.). This paper also includes a detailed explanation of their use as chiral building blocks for the synthesis of bioactive natural products. Among other uses, communic acids have proven useful as chirons for the synthesis of quassinoids (formal), abietane antioxidants, ambrox and other perfume fixatives, podolactone herbicides, etc., featuring shorter and more efficient processes. 2017-03-17T12:27:49Z 2017-03-17T12:27:49Z 2012 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Barrero, A., [et al]. Communic Acids: Occurrence, Properties and Use as Chirons for the Synthesis of Bioactive Compounds. Molecules 2012, 17, 1448-1467. [http://hdl.handle.net/10481/45345] 1420-3049 http://hdl.handle.net/10481/45345 spa http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License MDPI