Large-membered ring lactone

Metathesis is excellent for the formation of medium- and large rings. In the synthesis of epothi-lones K. C. Nicolaou41 used the Grubbs catalyst to close the 16-membered ring lactone 192 from the open chain ester 191 in good yield under mild conditions. The most obvious way to prepare 192 is to make an open chain hydroxy-acid and cyclise by lactone formation. The metathesis cyclisation generally works better. 

The diborane reduction of a large array of six- and seven-membered-ring lactones belonging to the cholestane-and androstane series has been investigated under different experimental conditions. Thus, reduction of the lactone (333) under the conditions shown can lead to either a mixture of oxide (334) and diol (335) or exclusively the latter. The results which were obtained suggested the reaction mechanism shown in Scheme 14, which would account for the formation of compounds (337), (338), and (339) from (336). ... 

Many natural products are lactones and it is not unusual to find examples m which the ring size is rather large A few naturally occurring lactones are shown m Figure 19 8 The macrohde antibiotics of which erythromycin is one example are macrocychc (large ring) lactones The lactone ring of erythromycin is 14 membered... 

CO-Hydroxycarboxylic acids give, after silylation to bis(trimethylsilylated) intermediates and subsequent treatment with mild Lewis acdds, small- and large-ring lactones in high yields. Thus co-hydroxytridecanoic acid 332 (n= 12) affords, via 333 n= 12), at room temperature, the macrolide 334 in 89% yield [115]. The medium-sized 8- and 9-membered lactones are, however, not formed, only diolides. Likewise, trimethylsilyl 6-trimethylsilyloxyhexanoate 333 is readily lactonized in the presence of 4-trifluoro-... 

Very large ring lactones are called macrolides, and are found in the natural macrolide antibiotics. Typically, these may have 12-, 14-, or 16-membered lactone rings, though other sizes are encountered. Erythromycin is a... 

Since then, the process has been extended to a wide variety of lactones of different size and to several lipases, as recently reviewed [93-96]. Interestingly, large-membered lactones, which are very difficult to polymerize by usual anionic and coordination polymerizations due to the low ring strain, are successfully polymerized by enzymes. Among the different lipases available, that fi om Candida antarctica (lipase CA, CALB or Novozym 435) is the most widely used due to its high activity. An alcohol can purposely be added to the reaction medium to initiate the polymerization instead of water. The polymerization can be carried out in bulk, in organic solvents, in water, and in ionic liquids. Interestingly, Kobayashi and coworkers reported in 2001 the ROP of lactones by lipase CA in supercritical CO2... 

A second period of macrocyclic chemistry was signaled by the isolation of the first macrolide antibiotic from an Actomyces culture in 1950. Brockmann and Henkel [6][7] named it picromycin (Pikromycin) (1/4), because of its bitter taste. This antibiotic contains a 14-membered ring. Since then a large number of macrocyclic lactones, lactams and cycloalkane derivatives have been discovered. Some of these compounds have a considerable physiological importance for humans and animals. Because of these physiological properties it was necessary to prepare larger quantities of these macrocylic compounds by chemical syntheses [8]. 

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