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Updated: Aug 12, 2025

Enzymatic Cascade Reactions for the Synthesis of Chiral Amino Alcohols from L-lysine
Published on: February 16, 2018
Six-Step Synthesis of (±)-Lysergic Acid
Brian J Knight1, Ryan C Harbit1, Joel M Smith1
1Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Florida State University, 95 Chieftain Way, Tallahassee, Florida 32306, United States.
Abstract:
This article describes a concise synthesis of lysergic acid from simple aromatic precursors. The successful strategy relies on the coupling, dearomatization, and cyclization of a halopyridine with a 4-haloindole derivative in 6 total synthetic steps from commercial starting materials. In addition to highlighting the advantages of employing dearomative retrosynthetic analysis, the design is practical and anticipated to enable the synthesis of novel neuroactive compounds as exemplified by the synthesis of a novel natural product derivative, 12-chlorolysergic acid.
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