1,3- group diol protection

Reductive elimination of an allylic diol group. A new synthesis of vitamin A involves reduction of the allylic diol 1, prepared in several steps from JJ-ionone, with a low valent titanium formed from TiCl3 and LiAlH, in the ratio 2 1. Thus, the allylic diol group of 1 [either (E) or (Z)] is reduced to an (E,E)-1,3-diene group to form the silyl ether (2) of vitamin A.1 When the primary hydroxyl group is protected as an acetate, the reduction gives a mixture of (E)- and (Z)-2. 

Y. Oikawa, T. Yoshioka, and O. Yonemitsu, Protection of hydroxy groups by intramolecular oxidative formation of methoxybenzylidene acetals with DDQ, Tetrahedron Lett. 889 (1982) Y. Oikawa, T. Nishi, and 0. Yonemitsu, Kinetic acetalatioa for 1,2- and 1,3-diol protection by the reaction of p-methoxyphenylmethyl methyl ether with DDQ, Tetrahedron Lett 4037... 

Tips A diol protecting group is prepared from the protecting group al-... 

Diols of different structures such as the meso-diol 76 (Fig. 41), the C2-symmetric diol rac-79 (Fig. 42), the diol rac-82 in which the primary hydroxy group is protected (Fig. 43) and the unprotected diol rac-84 with a primary and secondary hydroxy group (Fig. 44) were used as substrates in the lipase-catalyzed transesterification using vinyl acetate as acyl donor in organic solvents with the aim to prepare chiral buildings blocks of high enantiomeric purity.86... 

An intermediate in the synthesis of laulimalide by Davidson8 illustrates the differential protection of alcohols. The starting materials 56 and 57 already have an alcohol protected as a TBDMS silyl ether and a diol protected as an acetal. The alcohol in 58 is protected as a p-methoxybenzyl ether and the acetal hydrolysed by acetal exchange to give the free diol 60. Selective protection of the primary alcohol by a bulky acyl group (pivaloyl, i-BuCO ) 61 allows silylation of the secondary alcohol with a TIPS group 62. Finally the pivaloyl group is selectively removed by DIBAL reduction to release just one free alcohol 63. 

Cyclic diol protecting groups are not always conducive to a successful RCM. For example, when Banwell and McRae submitted acetonide-protected 1,3-diol 28 to the Grubbs first-generation catalyst, none of the desired macrocyle was produced, but cyclohexene 29 was obtained in 81% yield, probably because the acetonide protecting group facilitated interaction of the double bonds of the carboxylic acid portion of the molecule (Scheme 2.11) [24]. To circumvent this problem, substrate 30 was synthesized, where the diol was protected as two silyl ethers, and RCM of this compound led to the desired 18-membered lactone 31 in 70% yield under the same reaction conditions. 

---