Palladium-Catalyzed Cross-Couplings by C-O Bond Activation

Although palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling of aryl halides and reactive pseudohalides has revolutionized the way organic molecules are constructed today across various fields of chemistry, comparatively less progress has been made in the palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling of less reactive C-O electrophiles. This is despite the fact that the use of phenols and phenol derivatives as bench-stable cross-coupling partners has been well-recognized to bring about major advantages over aryl halides, such as (1) natural abundance of phenols, (2) avoidance of toxic halides, (3) orthogonal cross-coupling conditions, (4) prefunctionalization of phenolic substrates by electrophilic substitution or C-H functionalization, (5) ready availability of phenols from a different pool of precursors than aryl halides. In this review, we present an overview of recent advances made in the field of palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling of C-O electrophiles with a focus on (1) catalytic systems, (2) reaction type, and (3) class of C-O coupling partners. Although the field has been historically dominated by nickel catalysis, it is now evident that the use of more versatile, more functional group tolerant and highly active palladium catalysts supported by appropriately designed ancillary ligands enables the cross-coupling with improved substrate scope and generality, and likely represents a practical solution to the broadly applicable cross-coupling of various C-O bonds across diverse chemical disciplines. The review covers the period through June 2020.

An efficient Ugi-3CR/aza Diels-Alder/Pomeranz-Fritsch protocol towards novel aza-analogues of (±)-nuevamine, (±)-lennoxamine and magallanesine: a diversity oriented synthesis approach

A rapid and efficient synthesis of a series of (±)-nuevamine, (±)-lennoxamine and magallanesine aza analogues is described. The synthetic strategy involves Ugi-3CR and two further condensation processes, aza-Diels-Alder cycloaddition and the Pomeranz-Fritsch reaction. The variation of the chain-size in aldehyde moieties provided structural diversity in only two operational reaction steps.

ROMP-derived oligomeric phosphates for application in facile benzylation

The development of new ROMP-based oligomeric benzyl phosphates (OBP(n)) is reported for use as soluble, stable benzylating reagents. These oligomeric reagents are readily synthesized from commercially available materials and conveniently polymerized and purified in a one-pot process, affording bench-stable, pure white, free-flowing solids on multigram scale. Utilization in benzylation reactions with a variety of nucleophiles is reported.

Total synthesis and biological evaluation of (+)-neopeltolide and its analogues

The stereocontrolled total synthesis of the originally proposed (1) and correct (2) structures of (+)-neopeltolide, a novel marine macrolide natural product with highly potent antiproliferative activity against several cancer cell lines as well as potent antifungal activity, has been achieved by exploiting a newly developed Suzuki-Miyaura coupling/ring-closing metathesis strategy. Alkylborate 44, which was generated in situ from iodide 34, was coupled with enol phosphate 8 by a Suzuki-Miyaura coupling. Ring-closing metathesis of the derived diene 45 followed by stereoselective hydrogenation afforded tetrahydropyran 47 as a single stereoisomer in high overall yield from 34. Our convergent strategy enabled us to construct the 14-membered macrolactone core structure of 2 in a rapid and efficient manner. Total synthesis and biological evaluation of synthetic intermediates and designed synthetic analogues, performed to establish the structure-activity relationships of 2, led to the discovery of a structurally simple yet potent cytotoxic analogue, 9-demethylneopeltolide (54).