Tornwaldt's (Thornwaldt's) or nasopharyngeal cyst is an uncommon developmental
benign cyst located in the midline postero-superior wall of nasopharynx. Incidence reported in
general population is 0.06%. It occurred in the potential space due to outpouching of ectoderm into
the pharyngobasilar fascia at the site where notochord attached to pharyngeal ectoderm. (Copied from article).
A concise synthesis of the 1,4-diarylbutanoid-phenethylamine alkaloids, schwarzinicines A (1) and B (2), recently isolated from Ficus schwarzii, is reported. Key steps include a Claisen condensation to assemble the 1,4-diaryl-2-butanone intermediate, followed by a reductive amination to furnish the core skeleton of the target compounds. The overall synthetic yields of 1 and 2 were 9.1% and 3.5%, respectively. Synthetic (-)-1, (+)-1 and (±)-1 exhibited comparable vasorelaxation as natural schwarzinicine A on rat isolated aortic rings, suggesting that the observed vasorelaxant effects were not influenced by the chirality at C-2.