Direct Organocatalytic Reductive Alkylation of Syncarpic Acid: Scope and Applications

High-yielding total synthesis of embelin, rapanone, and irisoquin A, D, F

Simple and sustainable three- and four-step sequences of di-OH-protection/mono-OMe-deprotection/OrgRC and di-OH-protection/mono-OMe-deprotection/OrgRC/OMe-deprotection protocols were developed to construct biologically active natural products of irisoquin, irisoquin A, irisoquin D, irisoquin F, sorgoleone-364, embelin, rapanone, 5-O-methylembelin, 5-O-methylrapanone and their analogues from the commercially available 2,5-dihydroxy-1,4-benzoquinone, aliphatic aldehydes and Hantzsch ester (1,4-DHP) in very good to excellent yields by using organocatalytic reductive coupling (OrgRC) as key reaction. Many of these natural compounds exhibited a broad spectrum of biological activities including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticonvulsant, anxiolytic, analgesic, anthelmintic, antitumor, antibacterial, and antifertility properties. At the same time, simple and readily available 2,5-dihydroxy-1,4-benzoquinone was transformed into a functionally rich library of 2,5-dihydroxy-3,6-dialkyl-1,4-benzoquinones in very good yields by using sequential OrgRC followed by deprotection reactions and resulting natural/unnatural products would be excellent targets for investigation to show their biological activities compared to known natural products. Further, we tried to synthesize another mero-sesquiterpenoid of (+)-cyclospongiaquinone-1 from a chiral bicyclic aldehyde and hydroxy-1,4-benzoquinone by using OrgRC followed by etherification reactions, but we ended up with the synthesis of their ring-open analogues in good yields. The high-yielding gram-scale chemoselective synthesis of natural products irisoquin and demethylated-irisoquin demonstrated the potential to conduct these processes on larger scales.

Cyclic Iodonium Ylide Unlocked Pd-Catalyzed α-Acyloxylation of Cyclic 1,3-Dicarbonyls with Carboxylic Acids

To date, a general approach for the direct α-acyloxylation of cyclic 1,3-dicarbonyls remains challenging. Herein, we report a Pd-catalyzed α-acyloxylation of cyclic 1,3-dicarbonyl-derived hypervalent iodine compounds with highly abundant carboxylic acids. Our approach utilizes a commercially available Pd(OAc)2 catalyst, which exhibits mild reaction conditions, scalability, operational simplicity, and robustness against moisture and air. Importantly, our approach eliminates the need for excess carboxylic acids (only 1 equiv) and the use of explosive peroxides and is compatible with diverse complex substrates (e.g., glycyrrhetinic acid and celastrol). The power of this method is further demonstrated through significantly simplifying a previous synthesis.

Two-step, high-yielding total synthesis of antibiotic pyrones

A simple two-step dialkylation protocol was developed to synthesize biologically active antibiotics photopyrones, pseudopyronines, and violapyrones from bio-renewable triacetate lactone in excellent yields. These pyrones are functionally modified into another set of pyrone natural products by a single O-methylation reaction. The high-yielding gram scale synthesis of four natural products [pseudopyronine A, photopyrone A, pseudopyronine B and photopyrone C] demonstrated the viability for industrial applications.

Organocatalytic Reductive Amination of the Chiral Formylcyclopropanes: Scope and Applications

We developed a sustainable three-component reductive amination protocol for the chemoselective coupling of optically active functionally rich donor-acceptor carbonyl-cyclopropanes with various amines under 10 mol % of diphenyl phosphate in the presence of Hantzsch ester as a hydride source. The catalytic selective reductive C-N coupling has wide advantages like no epimerization, no ring opening, large substrate scope, generating only mono N-alkylation products and simultaneously resulting in chiral cyclopropane-containing amines possessing many applications in the medicinal chemistry. In this article, we have shown the synthetic applications of reductive C-N coupling reaction to make chiral α-carbonyl-cyclopropane containing amines 8, double C-N coupled cyclopropane-amines 10, unusual C-N/C-C coupled cyclopropane-amines 12, chiral tert-butylsulfinamide containing cyclopropanes 14/15, and functionally rich chiral cyclopropane-fused N-heterocycles 16/18/19. Many of these chiral cyclopropane-amines 5-19 can serve as building blocks for the synthesis of drug-like small molecules, natural products, pharmaceuticals, and their analogues.

Direct organocatalytic transfer hydrogenation and C-H oxidation: high-yielding synthesis of 3-hydroxy-3-alkyloxindoles

Readily available 3-alkylideneoxindoles were effectively reduced to 3-alkyloxindoles through transfer hydrogenation using Hantzsch ester as a reducing agent at ambient temperature and the greenness/sustainability of this protocol was assessed by correlation with Pd/C-mediated hydrogenation with hydrogen gas. Furthermore, an organocatalytic method was developed to access drug-like 3-alkyl-3-hydroxyoxindoles by C-H oxidation of 3-alkyl-indolin-2-one, using a catalytic amount of 1,1,3,3-tetramethylguanidine (TMG) as an organic base and dissolved oxygen in THF as an oxidant at room temperature. Key reaction intermediates were observed by controlled on-line ESI-HRMS experiments and identified by their corresponding mass (m/z) analysis. This two-step high-yielding transfer hydrogenation/C-H oxidation protocol was used for the total synthesis of medicinally important 3-cyanomethyl-3-hydroxyoxindole and formal total synthesis of (±)-alline and (±)-CPC-I in very good overall yields compared to previous methods.