Journal of Organic Chemistry 2004-02-20

Enantioselective total syntheses of (+)-arborescidine A, (-)-arborescidine B, and (-)-arborescidine C.

Leonardo S Santos, Ronaldo A Pilli, Viresh H Rawal

Index: J. Org. Chem. 69 , 1283-1289, (2004)

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Abstract

Described are the first enantioselective total syntheses of (+)-arborescidine A ((+)-1), (-)-arborescidine B ((-)-2), and (-)-arborescidine C ((-)-3), via routes that proceeded in five steps and 50% overall yield, eight steps and 61% overall yield, and nine steps and 51% overall yield, respectively, from 6-bromotryptamine (7). The syntheses feature the use of the Noyori catalytic asymmetric hydrogen-transfer reaction to introduce chirality in dihydro-beta-carbolines 6 and 8. On the basis of an ample precedent from Noyori's work, the reduction produces dihydro-beta-carbolines, and ultimately the natural products, possessing the R absolute configuration. The synthetic arborescidines displayed optical rotations that were opposite in sign those of the natural products, thereby supporting the S configuration for natural arborescidines A (1) and B (2) and the (3S,17S) configuration for natural arborescidine C (3). Our results are in agreement with the initial stereochemical assignment by Païs and co-workers, and are counter to their recently revised assignment.