Abstract
Progress made during the past 10–12 years in establishing the structure, elucidating the biological role, and synthesising the inositol phosphatides – a class of phospholipids – is discussed. The first part considers problems involved in establishing the structure of mono-, di-, and tri-phosphoinositides, mannosides of phosphatidylinositol, and more complicated "inositide" complexes. The second part deals with the biochemistry of inositol phosphatides, in particular the properties and functions specific to phosphoinositides. The problems and successes in the synthesis of phosphoinositides are discussed in the last part. A large amount of experimental information is used to show the complexity of the selective protection of the hydroxy-groups in myoinositol with the aim of obtaining initial compounds for the synthesis of inositol phosphatides. Work done during recent years is shown to open up a path to the synthesis of optically active phosphoinositides of natural structure. A list of 114 references is included.