The Journal of Organic Chemistry

Hydroxyl-directed regioselective monodemethylation of polymethoxyarenes

K Lal, S Ghosh, RG Salomon

Index: Lal, Kasturi; Ghosh, Subrata; Salomon, Robert G. Journal of Organic Chemistry, 1987 , vol. 52, # 6 p. 1072 - 1078

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Citation Number: 42

Abstract

We recently achieved total syntheses of dialdehydes of structure 1'which had been presumed2 to correspond to robustadials, natural products isolated from Eucalyptus robusta. Our syntheses involved cyclization of phenol 3 to provide chroman intermediate 2. Fortunately we found that monodemethylation of the trimethoxybenzene precursor 4 with sodium thioethoxide in N, N-dimethylformamide3 was highly regioselective. Although a ...