Alcohols general features

The general features of this elegant and efficient synthesis are illustrated, in retrosynthetic format, in Scheme 4. Asteltoxin s structure presents several options for retrosynthetic simplification. Disassembly of asteltoxin in the manner illustrated in Scheme 4 furnishes intermediates 2-4. In the synthetic direction, attack on the aldehyde carbonyl in 2 by anion 3 (or its synthetic equivalent) would be expected to afford a secondary alcohol. After acid-catalyzed skeletal reorganization, the aldehydic function that terminates the doubly unsaturated side chain could then serve as the electrophile for an intermolecular aldol condensation with a-pyrone 4. Subsequent dehydration of the aldol adduct would then afford asteltoxin (1). 

Discussion of ketone oxidation has centred around the identity of the molecule undergoing oxidation. This has been clearly resolved in some, but not all, cases, the evidence resting on (i), the relative rates of enolisation and oxidation, (ii) kinetic orders and (ih) isotope effects. A general feature of the oxidations of ketones by one-equivalent reagents is that the rate for a given oxidant exceeds that for oxidation of a secondary alcohol by the same oxidant. The most attractive explanation is that the radical formed from a ketone is stabilised by delocalisation, viz. 

Oxidation of primary, secondary and benzylic alcohols with TBHP or CHP, mainly catalyzed by Mo and Zr derivatives, were performed by different authors. As an example, Ishii, Ogawa and coworkers reported the conversion of secondary alcohols such as 2-octanol to ketones mediated by catalyst 39 and TBHP. The oxidation of cyclic alcohols depended on steric factors. Zirconium alkoxides may act as catalysts in the conversion of different alcohol typologies with alkyl hydroperoxides . Secondary alcohols, if not severely hindered, are quantitatively converted to the corresponding ketones. The selectivity for equatorial alcohols is a general feature of the system, as confirmed by the oxidation of the sole cis isomer 103 of a mixture 103-bl04 (equation 68). Esters and acids could be the by-products in the oxidation of primary alcohols. 

Methacrylic acid is produced by a number of different processes, one of which is based on the oxidation of isobutene (or of t-butyl alcohol) via the intermediate formation of methacrolein (Equation 32). The general features and the catalyst for the first-stage process are not dissimilar to those for acrolein production, whereas the oxidation of methacrolein to MMA differs in that it is catalyzed by... 

General features—Reactions of alcohols, ethers, and epoxides... 

The general feature of these reactions is as follows When treated with Sml2, a reductive cyclization between the carbonyl compound and the 8-carbon of the olefin of [XHI] derived fi-om sugars [XII] gives the desired polyhydroxylated cyclopentane [XIV], in which a new C1/C5 bond (carbohydrate numbering) is formed between sjp- centers. In the overall sequence, the sp alcohol stereocenter at C5 is destroyed when oxidation occurs to form the carbonyl moieties and subsequently reinstated, upon treatment with Sml2, to form a new hydroxy-... 

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