Abstract Our continued interest in the total synthesis of natural and unnatural antitumor anthracyclines1 especially the aglycones such as daunomycinone (1) 2 and 4- demethoxydaunomycinone (2) 3, 11-deoxydaunomycinone (3) 4 and 4-demethoxy-11- deoxydaunomycinone (4) 5 led us to probe methods of obtaining these products of absolute enantitomeric purity. Earlier it was demonstrated that the AB ring synthon 5 having a chiral ...
