Metathesis reactions, ring-closure carbene complexes

Abstract For many years after its discovery, olefin metathesis was hardly used as a synthetic tool. This situation changed when well-defined and stable carbene complexes of molybdenum and ruthenium were discovered as efficient precatalysts in the early 1990s. In particular, the high activity and selectivity in ring-closure reactions stimulated further research in this area and led to numerous applications in organic synthesis. Today, olefin metathesis is one of the... 

The metal-catalysed olefin metathesis (equation 122) when applied to dienes results in ring-closure and expulsion of an olefin (equation 123). Thus the molybdenum carbene complex 241 promotes the decomposition of the 1,6-heptadiene derivative 242 to a mixture of the cyclopentene 243 and ethylene (equation 124)122. An analogous reaction of the alcohol 244 gives 245 (equation 125), and 4-benzyloxy-l,7-decadiene (246) affords the cyclohexene 247 and 1-butene (equation 126). These transformations, which occur in benzene at room temperature, proceed in excellent yields122. 

The basics and the synthetic potential of olefin metathesis has been recently presented in a comprehensive handbook and several reviews [58]. Thus, this chapter will be restricted to demonstrate the scope and flexibility of this type of reaction in the total synthesis of a complex natural product skeleton such as epothilone. The first total syntheses of these antitumor-active 16-membered macrolactones were based on a ringclosing metathesis (RCM) strategy (Scheme 11.36) [73]. Grubbs catalyst 143 has been used for the construction of the endocydic 1,2-disubstituted C12-C13 double bond in epothilone C 148 that, after epoxidation, affords epothilone A 150 [74]. In this approach, ruthenium carbene 143 is more efiident than Schrock molybdenum catalyst 142b [75a[. However, the RCM-route to epothilone D 149, the desoxy precursor of epothilone B 151 bearing a trisubstituted C=C bond, requires the molybdenum carbene catalyst 142b attempts to initiate ring-closure with 143 failed [75]. 

---