Abstract In higher plants, the two homotcrpenes 4, 8-dimethylnona-l, 3, 7-triene (1) and 4, 8, 12-trimethyltrideca-1, 3, 7, 11-teiracnc (2) originate from nerolidol (3) or geranyllinalool (4) by anoxidative cleavage of their C-skele-lons. The reaction proceeds with exclusive loss of H 8–C (5) of 3 and formal production of a C 4 fragment. The site specificity of the enzyme (s) is identical for all of the hitherto examined plant families (Agavaceae, Asclepiadaceae, ...
