Aryl ethers, reductive lithiation

Cyclic alkyl aryl ethers lead also to functionalized organolithium compounds by reductive carbon-oxygen bond cleavage in arene-catalyzed lithiation process. Thus, the treatment of 2,3-dihydrobenzofuran (47) with an excess of lithium in the presence of a catalytic amount of DTBB in THF at 0°C gives the dianion (48) which after reaction with different carbonyl compounds and final hydrolysis with water leads to... 

An orf/io-directed lithiation allows the conversion of 25 to aryl iodide 40. Reductive ether formation of aldehyde 40 with crotyl alcohol yields compound 41. Intramolecular Heck reaction of 41 affords a mixture of the olefins 42 and 43. The undesired alkene 42 can be isomer-ized quantitatively to the desired enol ether 43 with Wilkinson s catalyst. Sharpless dihydroxylation ee 94 %) of the enol ether 43 provides lactol 44, which is oxidized directly to lactone 45. Finally, the pyridone-O-methyl ester is cleaved under acid conditions (45 — 7). 

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