COCON: From NMR correlation data to molecular constitutions

The constitutional assignment of natural products by NMR spectroscopy is usually based on 2D NMR experiments like COSY, HSQC, and HMBC. In this paper, the resulting connectivity information is used as input for the new structure generating program COCON which both improves and dramatically accelerates the process of constitutional assignment. COCON allows to quantify the value of connectivity information (2D NMR correlation data) for structure elucidation problems. Applying COCON, it is systematically evaluated to which degree the NMR experiments COSY, H-1,C-13-HMBC and 1,1-ADEQUATE constrain the number of constitutions compatible with the data sets of two secondary metabolites from marine sponges.