Acid-Catalysed Rearrangement of the Sandfly Pheromone Sobralene to Verticillenes, Consolidating its Relationship inter alia to the Taxanes and Phomactins

The sex-aggregation pheromone sobralene produced by the sandfly Lutzomyia longipalpis is isomerised to verticillenes in the presence of mild acid, thereby providing credence to the proposal that sobralene is a likely shunt metabolite of the taxadiene synthase cascade.