Interrupted SNAr-Alkylation Dearomatization

Dearomatizations provide powerful synthetic routes to rapidly assemble substituted carbocycles and heterocycles found in a plethora of bioactive molecules. Harnessing the advantages of dearomatization typically requires vigorous reagents because of the difficulty in disrupting the stable aromatic core. A relatively mild dearomatization strategy is described that employs lithiated nitriles or isocyanides in a simple SNAr-type addition to form σ-complexes that are trapped by alkylation. The dearomatizations are diastereoselective and efficient and rapidly install two new carbon-carbon bonds, one of which is a quaternary center, as well as nitrile, isocyanide, and cyclohexadiene functionalities.

Dearomatization of aromatic asmic isocyanides to complex cyclohexadienes

A dearomatization-dislocation-coupling cascade rapidly transforms aromatic isocyanides into highly functionalized cyclohexadienes. The facile cascade installs an exceptional degree of molecular complexity: three carbon-carbon bonds, two quaternary stereocenters, and three orthogonal functionalities, a cyclohexadiene, a nitrile, and an isocyanide. The tolerance of arylisocyanides makes the method among the mildest dearomatizations ever reported, typically occurring within minutes at -78 °C. Experimental and computational analyses implicate an electron transfer-initiated mechanism involving an unprecedented isocyanide rearrangement followed by radical-radical anion coupling. The dearomatization is fast, proceeds via a complex cascade mechanism supported by experimental and computational insight, and provides complex, synthetically valuable cyclohexadienes.

Total synthesis of optically active lycopladine A by utilizing diastereoselective protection of carbonyl group in a 1,3-cyclohexanedione derivative

We successfully synthesized two enantiomers of bicyclic enones, (7R,7aR)- and (7S,7aS)-9, from the hemiacetal 2a, which we first synthesized from the symmetrical diketone 1a via diastereoselective carbon-oxygen bond formation between one of the carbonyl groups and the chiral alcohol on the C2 side chain in a 2,2-disubstituted 1,3-cycloalkanedione derivative. We also report the total synthesis of natural (+)-lycopladine A [(+)-6] from (7R,7aR)-9 and the formal synthesis of unnatural (-)-lycopladine A [(-)-6] from (7S,7aS)-9.