Lessons learned from macrolide synthesis

The highlights of three macrolide syntheses recently completed in our laboratory are described. In the epothilone B synthesis we developed the "early epoxide approach," which resulted in the first completely stereocontrolled synthesis of this natural product. In the laulimalide synthesis our contribution was the auxiliary controlled ene-macrocyclization and Sharpless' kinetic resolution for achieving a regioselective epoxidation of two pseudo-enantiomorphic allylic alcohol subunits. The tartrolon B synthesis was the first to be completed. In this case, a substrate controlled aldol addition was used to assemble the entire carbon skeleton of the compound.