Abstract
Organic Chemistry Chemical synthesis is usually rather different from playing with a modeling kit. If two large fragments of a molecule are not properly oriented, it is not typically possible to break them apart, rotate one, and then paste them back together. Yet that is precisely the trick that Keylor et al. used to synthesize two plant-derived polyphenols. Resveratrol forms a variety of dimers, trimers, and tetramers. When one central carbon-carbon bond links the fragments, it is weak enough to break spontaneously and reversibly at room temperature. The authors leveraged this equilibrium to generate an efficient route to two of the tetramers, nepalensinol B and vateriaphenol C. Science , this issue p. [1260][1] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aaj1597
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