Naturally pyrrolidine alkaloids

In spite of the diverse nature of alkaloid structures, two structural units, i.e. fused pyrrolidine and piperidine rings in different oxidation states, appear as rather common denominators. We therefore chose to give several examples for four types of synthetic reactions which have frequently been used in alkaloid total synthesis and which provide generally useful routes to polycyclic compounds with five- or six-membered rings containing one nitrogen atom. These are ... 

Pyroglutamic acid is a useful starting material for the synthesis of several natural products, such as pyrrolidine alkaloids, kainoids, and other unnatural amino acids. Interesting chemose-lective Michael additions of anions derived from pyroglutamates have been reported (see Eqs. 4.54 and 4.55).69... 

The plethora of piperidine (242) and pyrrolidine alkaloids in Nature have made attractive targets for total synthesis, particularly since many contain a hydroxyl moiety adjacent to the amino group. This functionality is the case with the pseudodisto-mins-piperidines with antitumor activity isolated from the Okinawan tunicate Pseudodistoma kanaka. The limited availability of the natural material has prompted... 

Pyrrolidine is the simple five-membered cyclic amine and pyrrolidine alkaloids contain this ring somewhere in their structure. Both nicotine and atropine contain a pyrrolidine ring as do hygrine and tropinone. All are made in nature from ornithine. Ornithine is an amino acid not usually found in proteins but most organisms use it, often in the excretion of toxic substances. If birds are fed benzoic acid (PI1CO2H) they excrete dibenzoyl ornithine. When dead animals decay, the decarboxylation of ornithine leads to putrescine which, as its name suggest, smells revolting. It is the smell of death . 

Figure 2. Some naturally-occurring polyhydroxylated pyrroline and pyrrolidine alkaloids.

Assign each of these natural products to a general class (such as amino acid metabolite, terpene, polyketide) explaining what makes you choose that class. Then assign them to a more specific part of the class (such as pyrrolidine alkaloid). 

Comparatively few pyrrolidine alkaloids have been found to occur naturally. The parent substance is a constituent of Daucm carota L. (2) and is one of the minor alkaloids of tobacco. The presence of pyrrolidine in tobacco was established by characterization of this base (1) through its chloroaurate, C4H9N HCl AuCh, bright yellow plates, m.p. 206° (dec) and its chloroplatinate (C4H9N HCl)2PtCl4, as orange prisms which darken at 190° and melt with decomposition at 199°. It also forms a crystalline hydrochloride which sublimes on heating, and this in turn can be converted to a liquid nitrosamine by treatment with sodium nitrite. 

Natural Products. Four new broussonetines, M, O, P and Q (106-109), pyrrolidine alkaloids with p-glycosidase inhibitory properties, have been isolated from branches of Broussoneta kazinokiP... 

Zard and coworkers [32] reported a simple approach to create another group of natural products, namely the lycopodium alkaloids [15]. These authors first investigated the reaction of O-benzoyl-N-allylhydroxylamide 3-60 with tributyltin hydride and ACCN in refluxing toluene, which led (after formation of the N-radical 3-61 in a 5-exo-trig/5-exo-trig cyclization) to the undesired pyrrolidine 3-62 in 48% yield. Nevertheless, a small structural modification, namely the placement of a chlorine atom at the allyl moiety as in 3-63, induced a 5-exo-/G-endo- instead of the 5-exo-/5-... 

Since Huisgen s definition of the general concepts of 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition, this class of reaction has been used extensively in organic synthesis. Nitro compounds can participate in 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition as sources of 1,3-dipoles such as nitronates or nitroxides. Because the reaction of nitrones can be compared with that of nitronates, recent development of nitrones in organic synthesis is briefly summarized. 1,3-Dipolar cycloadditions to a double bond or a triple bond lead to five-membered heterocyclic compounds (Scheme 8.12). There are many excellent reviews on 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition, in particular, the monograph by Torssell covers this topic comprehensively. This chapter describes only recent progress in this field. Many papers have appeared after the comprehensive monograph by Torssell. Here, the natural product synthesis and asymmetric 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition are emphasized.630 Synthesis of pyrrolidine and -izidine alkaloids based on cycloaddition reactions are also discussed in this chapter. 

Sequential pyrrolidine and hydantoin ring-forming reactions via intramolecular [2+3] cycloaddition have been applied to the stereoselective solid-phase synthesis of conformationally constrained tricyclic triazacyclopenta [C]pentalene scaffold 43 < 1999JOC8342>. These novel compounds 43 share the structural complexity characteristic of certain alkaloid natural products, angular triquinanes. The retrosynthetic analysis is shown in Scheme 87. 

The pyrrolidine ring is part of numerous natural products, and we have restricted the field to those alkaloids that contain an isolated pyrrolidine ring. We have thus excluded the so-called Sceletium (mesembrine) and Dendrobium (den-drobine) alkaloids, which have also been reviewed (3-5). The pyrrolidine ring is frequently encountered in proline residues of cyclopeptide alkaloids these have been reviewed already (7) and will not be discussed here. 

Among the many natural products that may be considered in this category are the alkaloids 6-hydroxycrinamine (26a) and haemanthidine (26b), which are epimeric in the solid. It is found (71) that in solid 26a the hydroxyl attached to C-6 is trans to the pyrrolidine ring, whereas for both compounds, there is NMR evidence for epimerization at C-6 in solution (72). 

O Hagan, D. 2000. Pyrrole, pyrrolidine, pyridine, piperidine and tropane alkaloids. Nature Product Reports, 17 435 46. 

The dipolar cycloaddition of nitronates has been applied to the synthesis of several natural products in the context of the tandem [4+2] / [3 + 2] nitroalkene cycloaddition process. All of these syntheses have focused on the construction of pyrrolidine, pyrrolizidine, and indolizidine alkaloids. For example, the synthesis of ( )-hastanecine (316), a necine alkaloid, involves the elaboration of a p-benzoy-loxynitroalkene 311 via [4 + 2] cycloaddition with a chiral vinyl ether (312) in the presence of a titanium based Lewis acid, to provide the nitronate 313 with high diastereo- and facial selectivity (Scheme 2.30) (69). The dipolar cycloaddition of... 

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