Titanium-induced intramolecular pinacol coupling

In 1977, McMurry and Kees [152] developed a titanium-induced intramolecular coupling procedure to form cycloalkenes from dicarbonyl compounds. Mechanistically, as shown in Scheme 85, the coupling reaction proceeds by an initial pinacol dimerization of the dicarbonyl 253 to 254, followed by titanium-induced deoxygenation to afford alkene 255. 

The first total synthesis of ( )-sarcophytol B (5) from S./i-famesal (92), which was reported by McMurry et al. in 1989, used a low-temperature titanium-induced pinacol coupling reaction of 1,14-dialdehyde as the key step. They concluded that the natural sarcophytol B has the stereochemistry of a trans diol (Scheme 6-5). Li et al. reported on a concise total synthesis of ( )-sarcophytol B (5) from /i./i-famesol (91) by a low-valent titanium-mediated intramolecular McMurry... 

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