ChemSpider Blog

In the history of developing ChemSpider we have undertaken some fairly demanding curation activities. For example, Vancomycin and Ginkgolide B. Now we are in the middle of trying to resolve the structure of Digitonin. There are 25 (!) skeletons for digitonin on ChemSpider from various sources. There were eleven compounds on ChemSpider called Digitonin. We have been able to clean most of these by removing partial stereochemistry. We are now left with three structures…simply search Digitonin on ChemSpider and you will see three structures with full, but different stereochemistry.

What is a “correct structure” is a matter of assertion. Who says what is correct? What publications, what techniques, what database, who says its correct? Structures have timelines…they can change with time as new analytical techniques are applied.

This is a call to the community to help resolve the existing confusions around Digitonin on ChemSpider…but they are out there in all the other databases also and there are discrepencies between Wikipedia, DSSTox, ChEBI, PubChem and so on. So, my call to community…what is the correct structure of Digitonin and based on what assertions?

With this information in place, and assuming communal agreement on the conclusion, we can go help clean up the other databases. Help!