Cephalosporolide B Serving as a Versatile Synthetic Precursor: Asymmetric Biomimetic Total Syntheses of Cephalosporolides C, E, F, G, and (4-OMe-)G

Abstract

Cephalosporolide B (Ces-B) was efficiently synthesized and exploited for the first time as a versatile biomimetic synthetic precursor for the chemical syntheses of not only cephalosporolides C, G, and (4-OMe-) G via a challenging diastereoselective oxa-Michael addition but also the structurally unprecedented cephalosporolides E and F via a novel biomimetic ring-contraction rearrangement. These findings provide the first direct chemical evidence that Ces-B may be the true biosynthetic precursor of cephalosporolides.