Medicinal significance of furan derivatives: A Review

Furan is a planer five-member heterocyclic ring with 4C and 1O atom and in ring O is present in 1st positions. The furan ring is a constituent of several important natural products, including furanoflavonoid, furanolactones, fura- nocoumarins and many natural terpenoids. Being a non polar aromatic compound and presence of the ether oxy- gen which adds polarity as well as the potential for hydrogen bonding, it improves pharmacokinetic characteristics of lead molecules and thus used as a remedy to optimize solubility and bioavailability parameters of proposed poorly soluble lead molecules. Furan derivatives have occupied a unique place in the field of medicinal chemistry. The incorporation of the furan nucleus is an important synthetic strategy in drug discovery. The high therapeutic properties of the furan related drugs have encouraged the medicinal chemists to synthesize a large number of novel chemotherapeutic agents. drugs have broadened scope in remedying various dispositions in clinical medi- cines. Numerous methods for the synthesis of furans and also their various structure reactions offer enormous scope in the field of medicinal chemistry. This articles aims to review the work reported, their chemistry and bio- logical activities of furans during past years.