11.08 - Bicyclic 5-6 Systems With One Bridgehead (Ring Junction) Nitrogen Atom: No Extra Heteroatom

Indolizine is a ring system present in many families of natural alkaloids, mainly in the fully saturated form named indolizidine. This article is an extension of the reviews in CHEC (1984), CHEC-II (1996), and CHEC-III (2008). The analysis of the literature is limited to compounds containing the bicyclic indolizine ring, excluding all the ring fused derivatives. Reactivity aspects and syntheses of these compounds, either in the aromatic fully conjugated, non-aromatic partially conjugated, or fully saturated forms are described. References of the copious total syntheses of natural alkaloids containing the indolizine nucleus appeared in the last decade are reported in the last part of the article.