(S)-(+)-4-Nitro-2-butanol (1) obtained by the stereoselective reduction of 4-nitro-2-butanone by bakers' yeast was employed for the syntheses of natural products. A precursor of (+)- brefeldin A is synthesized starting from this chiral building block by 10 steps short-cut procedure compared with the shortest method so far reported.(S)-(+)-Sulcatol is obtained in much better enantiomeric purity than those reported. The reactivity of 1 in base-catalyzed ...