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Updated: Jul 18, 2026

From a Natural Product to Its Biosynthetic Gene Cluster: A Demonstration Using Polyketomycin from Streptomyces diastatochromogenes Tü6028
Published on: January 13, 2017
Modern aldol methods for the total synthesis of polyketides
Bernd Schetter1, Rainer Mahrwald
1Chemisches Institut, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Brook-Taylor-Strasse 2, 12489 Berlin, Germany.
Abstract:
The aldol reaction is one of the most important methods for the stereoselective construction of polyketide natural products, not only for nature but also for synthetic chemistry. The tremendous development in the field of aldol additions during the last 30 years has led to more and more total syntheses of complicated natural products. This Review illustrates by means of selected syntheses of natural products the new variants of the aldol addition. This includes aldol additions with various metal enolates, as well as metal-complex-catalyzed, organocatalytic, and biocatalytic methods.
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In the first step, as depicted in Figure 1, the base deprotonates the β-hydroxy ketone at the hydroxyl group to form an alkoxide ion.

