Total Syntheses of (-)-Acutumine and (-)-Dechloroacutumine

Total Syntheses of (-)-Acutumine and (-)-Dechloroacutumine

Sandra M. King, Nicholas A. Calandra, and Seth B. Herzon

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.201210076

Recently the Herzon group dislosed the neat syntheses of (-)-acutumine and (-)-dechloroacutumine. Driven by the interesting biological features (e.g. inhibition of human T-cell proliferation) and the densely functionalized structure the group devised a versatile approach towards both natural products. The common tetrahydroindolone core of the acutumines and the hasubanane alkaloids offered the opportunity to rely to some extend on earlier work on hasubanonine and related congeners.[1] The main steps of the synthesis include the earlier employed lithium acetylide addition to an iminium ion, an intramolecular Hosomi-Sakurai reaction and a nice introduction of an unsaturated ketone.

Scheme 1

The first two fragments are not featured in full detail in the paper so I present them separately. Fragment 5 can easily be accessed in five steps from glucose 1. Acetonide and acetal formation was followed by an Appel reaction and concomitant reductive ring opening to give aldehyde 3. Addition of vinyl Grignard, RCM in the presence of Grubbs-I and oxidation of the alcohol yielded known ketone 5 in good overall yield.

 Scheme 2

The second fragment was synthesized from trimethoxy acetophenone ketal 6 which underwent an interesting reductive ketal cleavage / hydroboration / oxidation procedure to give alcohol 7. Mesylation and S_N2 replacement with sodium azide then furnished 8.

 Scheme 3

 

The following sequence of steps has been used in the synthesis of the hasubanane alkaloids. Oxidative dearomatization of 8 was followed by stereoselective Diels Alder reaction of the less hindered double bond. Finally trimethylphosphine mediated Aza-Wittig reaction produced key intermediate 11.

 Scheme 4

 

Elaboration of ketone 5 began with stereoselective Michael addition of (TMS)₂ in the presence of catalytic Pd(OAc)₂ and subsequent cleavage of the resultant TMS enol ether. Enol triflate formation and Stille coupling produced acetylide 14.

 Scheme 5

Next methylation of the imine and addition of the lithium acetylide of 14 furnished a single diastereomer of 15. The diastereoselectivity in this step is not straightforward to explain. Building a model does not help much because addition seems to occur from the concave site which should be less favored. The group offers an explanation in the paper: “The contrasteric diastereoselectivity in the addition step may be due to unfavorable torsional strain within the pyrrolidine ring in the alternate diastereomer”. For related addition products the group had access to X-ray structures which proved the relative stereochemistry.

Extrusion of TMS-pentadiene under thermal conditions was followed by regioselective hydrostannylation to give 17. TBAF mediated Hosomi-Sakurai reaction proceeded in moderate yield to close the remaining five-membered ring. Metal-halogen exchange with CuCl₂ and deprotection of the diol then yielded 19.

 Scheme 6

 

Introduction of the remaining oxygen functionality proved to be fairly difficult. To the end the group had to rely on a rather steppy but successful approach. Oxidation of the diol to the vicinal diketone was followed by methyl sulfide addition and methylation to give 21. S_N2’ replacement by formic acid and thermally induced Claisen rearrangement and subsequent aminolysis furnished hemiketal 24.

 Scheme 7

With fragment 24 only a few steps were left to complete the endeavor. Oxidation of the hemiketal and succeeding reduction with sodium borohydride gave 25 in good overall yield in excellent diastereoselectivity. In the presence of rhodium and high pressure hydrogen 25 was transformed into acutumine in low yield. In the presence of palladium on charcoal beside the double bond the chlorine could be removed to give dechloroacutumine in good yield.

 Scheme 8

 

Overall a really nice paper which is definitely worth a read.

[1] http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.201102226

Total Synthesis of (±)-Maoecrystal V

Total Synthesis of (±)-Maoecrystal V

Feng Peng and Samuel J. Danishefsky

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ja309905j

Yet another interesting synthesis of Maoecrystal V was just reported from Danishefsky and Peng. Besides the completed total synthesis a first attempt is also featured in this article which might have been successful when the crucial Diels Alder reaction would have given them the correct stereoisomer. After straightforward preparation of precursor A Diels Alder reaction furnished B instead of C. This outcome puts paid to the whole strategy because there is no handle on the C₂-bridge with which the required functionalities could be introduced.

Scheme 1

With this result in hand the group started a study which then turned out be the starting point of their revised synthesis. In the first step readily accessible precursors 1 and 2 where joined together in moderate yield. Global reduction with DIBAL-H and selective oxidation of the allylic alcohol gave 4 which was acylated with D and converted to TBS enol ether 5. Under almost identical conditions as for the synthesis of B this time Diels Alder product 6 was obtained after TBAF mediated desilylation and base induced desulfinylation. Epoxidation of the unsaturated lactone double bond was followed by MgI₂ facilitated opening of the epoxide with formation of the corresponding a-iodo alcohol. Dehalogenation was accomplished with Bu₃SnH to give 7.

 Scheme 2

Next the cyclohexadiene ring was functionalized. Stereoselective epoxidation with mCPBA and subsequent opening under acid catalysis furnished tetrahydrofurane 9. Acetylation of the alcohol and reduction of the ketone yielded an inseparable mixture of diastereomers which proved to be inconsequential because the alcohol will be transformed into a sp² center during the synthesis.[1] MOM-protection and deacetylation gave homoallylic alcohol which could be epoxidated again to epoxide 12. Oxidation and acetic anhydride assisted opening of the epoxide was followed by conjugate addition of phenyl thiol and reduction of the ketone to give thioether 14. Desulfination with Raney-Ni and elimination of the alcohol furnished at last enol ether 15. Though the functionalization of the cyclohexadiene ring seems to be pretty steppy the transformations could be executed in overall acceptable yield.

Scheme 3

To the end of the synthesis mainly the remaining methyl groups have to be introduced. Therefore again an epoxidation was used to functionalize the enol ether double bond. Note the overall inversion of the stereogenic center comparing 14 and 16. Under Lewis acidic conditions the epoxide was opened to ketone 16 in a Rubottom-type oxidation. Then a rather cool approach for the introduction of a gem-dimethyl group was utilized. First the ketone was transformed to an exomethylene group in the presence of Lombardo’s reagent. A Simmons-Smith cyclopropanation converts the double bond into the spiro-cyclopropane 17 which was opened under hydrogenolytic conditions after deprotection and adjustment of the oxidation states of the appendant alcohols. Chemoselective methylenation of the less hindered ketone was accomplished again in the presence of Lombardo’s reagent and followed by acid catalyzed migration of the double bond. Saegusa oxidation, epoxidation with TFDO and Lewis acid assisted opening of the ketone produced Maoecrystal V.[2]

Scheme 4

[1] Though the following purification steps were of course be affected.

[2] I know that this piece of work is not a pretty recent one anymore but I really wanted to cover this nice synthesis. I am really busy these days. Hopefully this changes within the next weeks because there are a lot of nice papers out. I hope you guys are still enjoying my posts and thanks for still visiting my blog…

Total Synthesis of Branimycin: An Evolutionary Approach

Valentin S. Enev, Wolfgang Felzmann, Alexey Gromov, Stefan Marchart, and Johann Mulzer

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/chem.201200257

As the title suggests this full account features a collection of approaches towards the central core of branimycin. All those who are interested in a great story of evolutionary chemical design really should have a look at the full paper. I will focus in this short write-up only on the longest linear sequence.

Scheme 1

As can be seen from scheme 1 the synthesis focusses mainly on three fragments where green fragment 1 and blue fragment 2 constitute the main part of the molecule. The synthesis of fragment 1 is described in a previous paper but also featured in the following. The evolutionary design is limited to the synthesis of 2 and fragment 3 is commercially available dimethyl malonate.

The first route to allylalcohol 7 started from (R,R)-dimethyltartrate which was protected and reduced to diol 5. Methylation, tosylation, Finkelstein reaction, and reductive acetonide cleavage then furnished 7 in low yield. A more direct access from glycidol 6 is also presented. After methylation of the hydroxy function the epoxide was opened under Corey-Chaykovsky conditions to give 7. TIPS protection and ozonolysis of the olefin produced aldehyde 8.

Scheme 2

Next aldehyde 8 underwent a Marshall reaction with a chiral silylallene to give in high yield and stereoselectivity alkyne 9. Aqueous ammonium chloride was necessary for in situ deprotection of the resulting TMS ether. MOM protection of the alcohol and Schwartz reaction with subsequent iodine quench was used to arrive at vinyl iodide 10. Protection group switch from TIPS to the more convergent cleavage TBS group is straightforward giving green fragment 1.

 Scheme 3

The synthesis of the blue fragment began with Diels Alder reaction between two equivalents of furan and methyl propiolate. With ester 11 in hand the surplus ester group was removed following Barton’s protocol. Saponification and esterification with HPT produced thiohydroxamate ester 12 which loses CO₂ under reductive radical reaction conditions yielding 13. Opening of one of the dihydrofurans gives a racemic mixture of alcohols 14 which were in turn protected. The silyl group was used as a handle in a Tamao-Fleming oxidation to introduce the terminal alcohol to give after methylation rac-15.

Scheme 4

The next step in the synthesis is an interesting chiral resolution strategy by a “chiral hydride”. This is transferred from a Ni-(R)-BINAP complex with DiBAl-H as the hydride source. Never saw this kind of strategy in a total synthesis before but it is really a pretty neat solution. Although half of the material got lost in this step it provides rapid access to the blue fragment 2. If you are interested in this step you should have a look into this one ^[1]. So with enantiomerically pure 16 in hand the alcohol was oxidized and the PMB group replaced with a TBS group. After chemo- and stereoselective epoxidation (maybe guided by the methoxy group?) the blue fragment 2 was ready for the crucial coupling step.

 Scheme 5

Metal/halogen exchange of 1 with tBuLi and quench with 2 generated an alcoholate which immediately opens the epoxide in a 5-exo-tet reaction to give 19. This advanced intermediate was protected as a TBS ether and exposed to Cr(VI) which is known to promote allylic oxidation/rearrangement/oxidation to give in the end an unsaturated ketone. An attempted Claisen rearrangement to introduce the side chain did not give any positive results so the group had to pursue a different route. Michael addition of dimethylmalonate, triflation of the ketone, and reduction saved the day giving 21 in good overall yield.

 Scheme 6

Global reduction with LiBEt₃H, selective monomethylation and MOM-deprotection produced diol 22. Chemoselective TEMPO oxidation (primary vs. secondary alcohol) to the aldehyde and Pinnick oxidation gave seco-acid 23. Some macrolactonization conditions were screened but the rather old school Corey-Nicolaou reaction proved to be successful to furnish after desilylation branimycin. As can be seen from scheme 7 it was not possible to control the stereochemistry a to the ester functionality. The preceding methylation to differentiate the hydroxy functionalities did not result in any chiral resolution so this stereocenter remains racemic giving at last two diastereomers of branimycin. Nevertheless the absolute of this stereocenter could be unambiguously resolved which remained unclear at the beginning of the story.

 Scheme 7

Sorry for the long delay of posting but I am really busy with finishing my exams and planning my move to the US.

 

[1] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0040-4020(97)10211-3