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Published on: June 10, 2021
Divergent Syntheses of Euphorbia Diterpenoids: A Relay Rearrangement Strategy Triggered by Pyridinium Ring
Lingran Kong1, Junlong Qin1, Hang Yu1
1Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Ministry of Education and Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Science, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing100871, China.
Abstract:
Euphorbia diterpenoids are a structurally diverse class of natural products renowned for their potent biological activities. Inspired by biosynthetic 1,2-migrations, yet deliberately departing from these pathways, we developed a synthetic strategy that provides collective access to multiple distinct skeletal families through relay rearrangements. Central to this approach is the photochemical ring contraction of pyridinium salts, followed by aziridine-mediated diversification, to construct highly functionalized cyclopentane cores. These intermediates could be transformed into the euphorstranoid scaffold via a retro-aldol/transannular aldol sequence that enables stereocenter inversion, and into the pepluanol scaffold through a rare cationic [3,4]-rearrangement. This unified strategy not only enables the total syntheses of (+)-resiniferatoxin, (-)-euphorstranoid B, and (+)-pepluanol A, but also establishes a modular platform for complex carbocycle assembly in terpenoid synthesis.
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