New access to long-chain polyketides and spiroketals by umpolung of electron rich dienes with sulfur dioxide

Natural polyketides show important biological activity. The inherent stereochemical complexity present in this class of molecules has captured the imagination of organic chemists. Their stereocontrolled, asymmetric total synthesis is a permanent and stimulating area of research. Previous efforts in our group demonstrated that the Umpolung of electron rich 1,3-dienes with SO2 could represent an efficient synthetic strategy to polyketides. Under appropriate conditions sulfur dioxide reacts with 1,3-dienes in the hetero-Diels-Alder fashion. In the case of 1-alkoxy-1,3-dienes, the 6-alkoxy-3,6-dihydro-1,2-oxatiin-2-oxides (sultines) so-obtained can be ionized in the presence of a Lewis or protic acid. The resulting zwitterionic intermediates can be trapped with enoxysilanes (oxyallylation) to generate the corresponding substituted alkenylsulfinates. Desilylation of the latter under acidic conditions leads to allylsulfinic acid intermediates, which, after retro-ene desulfitation, produce 4-alkoxyhepta-6-en-2-one core, a valuable fragment in polyketide natural product synthesis. This new SO2 cascade reaction, hetero-Diels-Alder addition/oxyallylation/retro-ene desulfitation (Vogel's cascade) has been extended to 1-alkoxy-3-acyloxy-1,3-pentadienes. Their use in this cascade reaction allowed the generation of 1,3-polyols array containing keto and enol ester functions, suitable for further chain elongation. In addition, this work highlights the extension of this methodology to other types of p-nucleophiles. The use of carefully elaborated allylsilanes allowed the preparation in a single operation (one pot double oxyallylation reaction) of long chain polyketides of 13 carbons units. Finally, a new route to the spiroketals A/B and C/D and of Spongistatins is presented in order to demonstrate the utility and the versatility of this approach.

Total asymmetric synthesis of advanced polyketide fragments of apoptolidinone and rectricticin using new organic chemistry of sulfur dioxide

Cotinica Craita

Under appropriate conditions sulfur dioxide reacts with 1,3-dienes in a hetero-Diels-Alder fashion. In the case of 1-alkoxy-1,3-dienes the 6-alkoxy-3,6-dihydro-1,2-oxathiin-2-oxides (sultines) so-obtained can be ionized in the presence of Lewis or protic acids. The zwitterionic intermediates can be trapped as electrophiles with enoxysilanes (oxyallylation) to generate substituted silyl alkenylsulfinates. The latter can then be reacted with TBAF and an electrophile to generate polyfunctional sulfones (one pot, four component syntheses). Alternatively, desilylation through silicon/palladium transmetallation, in the presence of a catalytic amount of Pd(OAc)2, leads to intermediate allylsulfinic acids, which, after retro-ene desulfitation, produce 4-alkoxyhept-6-en-2-one core, a valuable fragment in polyketide natural product synthesis. The first part of this work described the application of an asymmetric version of this new SO2 reaction cascade, hetero-Diels-Alder addition/oxyallylation/retro-ene desulfitation (Vogel's cascade), using enantiomerically enriched dienes. The synthesis of a variety of β-alkoxy ketones was realized with good α,β-syn selectivity, starting from different enoxysilanes, illustrating the versatility of the method. An iterative Vogel's cascade employing newly obtained fragments provided long-chain polypropionate fragments such as (-)-(4R,5R,6S,9S,10R,2E,11E)-4,6,10-trimethyl-5,9-bis-((1S)-1-phenylethoxy)-trideca-2,11-dien-7-one in a very short and efficient way. The synthetic potential of Vogel's cascade reaction was demonstrated by the short and elegant synthesis of the enantiomerically enriched polypropionate fragment (C16-C28) of apoptolidinone, aglycon of apoptolidin, a highly potent apoptosis inducing agent. In the second part of thesis the one pot polyfunctional sulfone synthesis, developed in our group was successfully combined with the aldol methodology of Paterson to reach an advanced polyketide fragment, a potential intermediate in the total synthesis of Restricticin. Finally, in the last part of this study, we have demonstrated that methallyl silylsulfinates, known as new reagents for alcohol silylation are very precious and efficient reagents for the silylation of phenols and carboxylic acids. Additionally, the chemoselectivity of these reagents on substrates containing different hydroxyl groups was demonstrated.

EPFL2006

Sulfur dioxide mediated syntheses of polyene containing natural products

Laure Bouchez

The goal of this thesis was to open a new route to the synthesis of conjugated trienes using a new SO2-based C-C bond forming reactions developed in Lausanne. In addition, the potential of SO2 for applications in synthetic organic chemistry has been exploited. Firstly, we discovered that under suitable conditions sulfur dioxide is able to undergo ene reaction with different building blocks such as enoxysilanes and allylsilanes to form the corresponding sulfinates. The latter can be used as key intermediates for the preparation of β-ketones, β-keto-sulfonamides and β-keto-sulfonic esters. This approach allows preparing β-keto-sulfonamides in one-pot operations. Up to now, the same type of compounds would require multi-steps syntheses. Considering the importance of sulfonamides and sulfonic esters in medicinal chemistry we prepared representative examples of such compounds. Secondly, our studies demonstrate, for the first time, that sulfones containing (E)-alkene units can be obtained through the reaction of (E,E)-1-silyloxy-2-methylpenta-1,3-diene with substituted enoxysilanes and an excess of sulfur dioxide, followed by subsequent quenching with electrophiles. Importantly, this four-component reaction yields (E)-alkenes only in the presence of a protic acid promoter and only with 1-silyloxypentadienes. In all cases mixtures of α,β-syn and α,β-anti ketones are obtained. The α,β-diastereoselectivity of the oxyallylation (face selectivity of the enoxysilane addition) does not surpass 6:1 (3R,4S vs.3S,4S). Interestingly only β,ε-like substituted ε-sulfonylketones are formed, in contrast with the (Z)-isomers which present unlike β,ε-relative configuration. Thirdly, sulfur dioxide-based chemistry was applied for the asymmetric synthesis of the conjugated (E,E,E)-triene moiety of apoptolidinone, a highly potent apoptosis inducing agent with a daunting molecular architecture. Two main synthetic routes towards the synthesis of the trienic fragment of apoptolidinone were developed, one leading to the racemic fragment and a second route leading to the enantiomerically enriched C(1)-C(9) fragment. The latter was transformed further into the fragment already synthesized by Nicolaou and co-workers, demonstrating that this second route is significantly shorter than the route previously reported in the literature. The same methodology yields also facile access to the trienic part C(5)-C(14) fragment of restricticin. This underlines further the general applicability and the high flexibilities of our method toward the synthesis of trienes.

EPFL2004

Total Synthesis of Dolabriferol and Polypropionate Fragments Applying New Organic Chemistry of Sulfur Dioxide

Sylvain Claude Laclef

Polypropionates are common products of metabolism in bacteria, insects, fungi and marine organisms. They constitute an important class of products with a wide range of interesting biological activities. Our group has shown previously that 1-alkoxy-3-acyloxy-2-methyl-1,3-pentadienes can undergo hetero-Diels-Alder reactions with SO2, to give the corresponding sultines, which at low temperature in the presence of Lewis acids, can be opened to zwitterionic intermediates. The latter can be trapped by nucleophiles like enoxysilanes (oxyallylation) to generate the corresponding substituted silyl alkenylsulfinate. Desilylation of the latter under acidic conditions leads to intermediate allylsulfinic acids, which, after retro-ene desulfitation, provide a dipropionate stereotriad which is a useful fragment for polypropionate synthesis. Indeed this fragment obtained using this new SO2 reaction cascade, hetero-Diels-Alder addition/oxyallylation/retro-ene desulfitation (Vogel's cascade) is containing keto and enol ester fonctionality which allows the design of the asymmetric total synthesis of complicated polyketides fragments. Firstly a study was made in order to improve the way of synthesis of dienes and their use in Vogel's cascade to improve the diastereoselectivity of the oxyallylation step. The use of this methodology, using (E)-enoxysilanes as nucleophile for the oxyallylation step allowed us to obtain anti,anti-dipropionate stereotriad in high diastereoselectivity. This common subunit found in polyketide-derived natural products has generally been recognized to be difficult to synthesize. This fragment and its properties was used successfully in the first asymmetric total synthesis of the marine natural product dolabriferol. The use of Vogel's cascade with (Z)-enoxysilanes as nucleophile for the oxyallylation step is providing anti-syn-dipropionate stereotriad as major compound. Combination of this method and aldol chemistry allowed us the synthesis of polypropionate fragments in a short sequence. Efforts toward the synthesis of 6-deoxyrythronolide B, and analogues was presented. This strategy allowed us also, to synthesize, in a very efficient way, a lot of compound like lactones which are natural precursor of polypropionate with interesting biological activity or sulfonamide which are well known class of drugs.

EPFL2010