Oxygen nucleophiles natural products synthesis

It is interesting to note that the oxa-analogous Michael addition was reported for the first time in 1878 by Loydl et al. [19] in their work on the synthesis of artificial malic acid, which was five years ahead of the discovery of the actual Michael reaction described first by Komnenos [20], Claisen [21], and later Michael in 1887 [22] as one of the most important methods for C—C bond formation. In continuation of the early work on the oxa-Michael addition [23], the inter- and intramolecular additions of alkoxides to enantiopure Michael acceptors has been investigated, leading to the diastereo- and enantioselective synthesis of the corresponding Michael adducts [24]. The intramolecular reaction has often been used as a key step in natural product synthesis, for example as by Nicolaou et al. in the synthesis of Brevetoxin B in 1989 [25]. The addition of oxygen nucleophiles to nitro-alkenes was described by Barrett et al. [26], Kamimura et al. [27], and Brade and Vasella [28]. 

M-Acyliminium cyclizations of optically active mono- and di-oxygenated hydroxylactam derivatives have been used in the synthesis of a number of natural products. In case of a five-membered lactam the oxygen function adjacent to the iminium carbon directs attack of the internal nucleophile from the least hindered side, opposite to the substituent. In the examples given the size of the newly formed ring is determined by the electronic bias of the alkene substituent. 

The reactivity of alkynylstannanes toward electrophiles is one element in the oxygen-to-carbon rearrangement of alkynylstannane derivatives of furanyl and pyranyl lactols (e.g., Equation (85)). The cleavage of the anomeric C-O bond is assisted by the Lewis acid to give an oxonium ion, which is trapped in situ by the nucleophilic stannylalkyne. The utility of this process has been demonstrated in the synthesis of the natural product muricatetrocin C, and the drug substance CMI-977.246... 

Carbonyl ylides can be viewed as an adduct between a carbonyl group and a carbene and, in fact, some ylides have been prepared this way (see above). The application of carbonyl ylides to the synthesis of complex natural products has been greatly advanced by the finding that stabilized carbenoids can be generated by the decomposition of ot-diazocarbonyl compounds with copper and rhodium complexes. The metallocarbenoids formed by this method are highly electrophilic on carbon and readily add nucleophiles such as the oxygen of many carbonyl derivatives to form carbonyl ylides. This type of reaction is in fact quite old with the first report being the addition of diazomalonate and benzaldehyde (33,34). 

As described in Section II, Lewis acid catalyzed desilylative carbon-carbon bond formation with an electrophile has been shown to be very versatile in organic synthesis. Occasionally, depending on the nature of the substrates (e.g. the presence of appropriate functional groups), the carbon-silicon bond may remain intact. For example, treatment of 132 with a Lewis acid affords a mixture of cyclization products 133-135 (equation 113). The isolation of 133 indicates that the carbocation intermediate thus formed is trapped by the oxygen nucleophile before elimination of the silyl moiety occurs204. 

The oxidative activation of arenes is a powerful and versatile synthetic tactic that enables dearomatization to give useful synthons. Central to this chemistry are hydroxylated arenes or arenols, the phenolic functions of which can be exploited to facilitate the dearomatizing process by two-electron oxidation. Suitably substituted arenols can hence be converted, with the help of oxygen- or carbon-based nucleophiles, into ortho-quinone monoketals and ortho-quinols. These 6-oxocyclohexa-2,4-dienones are ideally functionalized for the construction of many complex and polyoxygenated natural product architectures. Today, the inherent and multiple reactivity of arenol-derived ortho-quinone monoketals and ortho-quinols species is finding numerous and, in many cases, biomimetic applications in modern organic synthesis. 

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