Tetrahedron Letters

Rhodium (I)-catalyzed addition of phenols to dienes. A new convergent synthesis of vitamin E

H Bienaymé, JE Ancel, P Meilland, JP Simonato

Index: Bienayme, Hugues; Ancel, Jean-Erick; Meilland, Pierre; Simonato, Jean-Pierre Tetrahedron Letters, 2000 , vol. 41, # 18 p. 3339 - 3343

Full Text: HTML

Citation Number: 20

Abstract

A highly convergent and atom-economical synthesis of (dl)-[α]-tocopherol (vitamin E) is proposed, the realization of which was made possible by the discovery of the regioselective Rh (I)-catalyzed arylation of β-springene with trimethylhydroquinone. Other phenolic compounds and 2-substituted-1, 3-dienes were shown to undergo this transformation.