Ring conformational constraint

C12-C13 would facilitate the ring closure, monocyclic diene 170 was chosen as the metathesis substrate. Indeed, exposure of 170 to catalyst A provided cycliza-tion product 171 in 94% yield within 6 h, without the aid of a cyclic conformational constraint. 

The bias of a given diene for RCM depends on the ring size formed, on conformational constraints of the substrate, on the presence of functional groups, and on interactions with the specific catalyst used. 

An illustrative example for the potency of catalyst C is Paquette s highly efficient total synthesis of the natural products teubrevin G 180 and teubrevin H 181, which feature a cyclooctane core fused and spiroannulated to smaller oxygen containing rings. In the retrosynthetic analysis, the viability of an RCM step for annulation of a cyclooct-enone ring to the furan played a central role. Despite the presence of a conformational constraint by the furan ring in... 

The above discussion provides a background for a discussion of the conformations of various azocanes, oxocanes, thiocanes and related compounds which lack strong ring torsional constraints. 

Contrary to most allocolchicinoids which lack a C-ll substituent, compounds 78 and 80 show stable axial chirality. The above study constitutes the first example in the allocolchicinoid series where both configurations at the biaryl axis can be obtained from a given stereochemistry at C-7. In the natural alio series, free rotation around the biaryl axis is often possible at room temperature, and the configuration of the biaryl axis is controlled by the stereochemistry at C-7 due to conformational constraints in the C-ring [14]. While several total enantioselective syntheses of colchicine address the control of the stereochemistry at C-7 [106], no direct enantioselective synthesis of natural allocolchicines has been reported to date. ... 

The conformational behavior of cyclic molecules is conveniently discussed separately from that of acyclic molecules. Ring closure indeed imposes conformational constraints and limitations not existing in linear systems. 

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