Progress in the Chemistry of Organic Natural Products 105

The first contribution reviews the occurrence of xanthine alkaloids in the plant kingdom and the elucidation of the caffeine biosynthesis pathway, providing details of the N-methyltransferases, belonging to the motif B'' methyltransferase family which catalyze three steps in the four step pathway leading from xanthosine to caffeine. The second contribution in this book provides a background on the...