Polyketide stereotetrads in natural products

Natural products (or secondary metabolites) remain as the most important source for discovery of new and potential drug molecules. With high resolution data of their structures, and the advancement of synthesis possibilities, analysis of the natural products based on their specific structural features is valuable to those entering the field. In this tutorial review we attempt such an analysis indicating the salient features of the structural classes with examples of the synthesis of each one of them. As the particular class of natural products, we have chosen polyketides.