3,5-Dihydroxy ester, from 3,5-diketo

In a study aim to develop biocatalytic process for the synthesis of Kaneka alcohol, apotential intermediate for the synthesis of HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, cell suspensions of Acine-tobacter sp. SC 13 874 was found to reduce diketo ethyl ester to give the desired syn-(AR,5S)-dihydroxy ester with an ee of 99% and a de of 63% (Figure 7.4). When the tert-butyl ester was used as the starting material, a mixture of mono- and di-hydroxy esters was obtained with the dihydroxy ester showing an ee of 87% and de of 51% for the desired, sy -(3/t,5,Sr)-dihydroxy ester [16]. Three different ketoreductases were purified from this strain. Reductase I only catalyzes the reduction of diketo ester to its monohydroxy products, whereas reductase II catalyzes the formation of dihydroxy products from monohydroxy substrates. A third reductase (III) catalyzes the reduction of diketo ester to, vv -(3/t,55)-dihydroxy ester. 

Substituted 1,3-diols are valuable intermediates in the synthesis of drugs and natural products [18]. Starting from the regio- and enantioselective enzymatic reduction of diketo esters described above, various methods to obtain enantio-merically pure 3,5-dihydroxy esters were developed. 

Furthermore, much work has been devoted to the development of stereoselective methods for preparing terminally functionalized 3,5-dihydroxy carboxylates. Muller et al. developed a new chemoenzymatic synthesis of the chlorinated 5-hydroxy-3-keto ester as the precursor for the dihydroxy hexanoate [169, 170]. The diketo ester is reduced exclusively in the C5 position by NADP+-dependent ADH from L. kefir or L. brevis. NADPH is regenerated by an excess of isopropanol by the same enzyme [171, 172] (Fig. 43). High concentrations of isopropanol are... 

For the synthesis of (69), the enol ether (71) from the indanone (70) was carboxylated with COa-n-butyl-Iithium in THF at —70 C to yield (72). The methyl ester (73) was converted into (75) via the maleic anhydride adduct (74), essentially as described in earlier work. Lithium aluminium hydride reduction followed by oxidation with dicyclohexylcarbodi-imide afforded the aldehyde (76). This was condensed with excess (77) to yield a mixture of the diastereomers (78). Oxidation with chromium trioxide-pyridine in methylene dichloride gave (79), which could be converted into the diketone (80) by treatment with excess benzenesulphonylazide. The diketo-lactam (81) was prepared from (80) as described for the synthesis of the analogous intermediate used in the synthesis of napelline. Reduction of (81) with lithium tri-t butoxyaluminohydride gave the desired dihydroxy-lactam (82). Methylation of (82) with methyl iodide-sodium hydride gave (83). Reduction of this lactam to the amine (84) with lithium aluminium hydride, followed by oxidation with potassium permanganate in acetic acid, gave (69). 

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