Complex Cyclic Ethers: (+)-Conocarpan (Hashimoto), (-)-Brevisamide (Satake/ Tachibana), (+)-Bruguierol A (Fañanás/ Rodríguez), (-)-Berkelic Acid (Snider), and (-)-Aigialomycin D (Harvey)
( + )-Conocarpan 3, isolated from the wood of Conocarpus erectus , exhibits insecticidal, antifungal and antitrypanosomal activity. Shunichi Hashimoto of Hokkaido University developed (J. Org. Chem. 2009, 74 , 4418) a chiral Rh (II) carboxylate that effected the cyclization of 1 to 2, setting the absolute configuration of 3. The dinoflagellate Karenia brevis produces the brevetoxins, a family of complex polyethers. Recently, the first N-containing cyclic ether, (-)-Brevisamide 6, was isolated from K. brevis . Masayuki Satake and Kazuo Tachibana of the University of Tokyo, in their synthesis of 6 (Organic Lett. 2009, 11, 217) found it convenient to set the relative configuration around the six-membered ring by double hydroboration/oxidation of the diene 4. ( + )-Bruguierol A 9, isolated from the mangrove Bruguiera gymmorrhiza, has an unusual bridged structure. Francisco J. Fañanás and Félix Rodríguez of the Universidad de Oviedo conceived (J. Org. Chem. 2009, 74, 932) an elegant approach to the construction of 9, based on the Pt-mediated addition of the alcohol of 7 to the alkyne to give a transient enol ether. It is not clear whether the subsequent intramolecular electrophilic addition to the aromatic ring is mediated by the Pt, or by a trace of adventitious acid. The overall transformation was remarkably efficient. The Berkeley Pit in Butte, Montana, is an abandoned open-pit copper mine filled with 30 billion gallons of pH = 2.5 water heavily contaminated with, inter alia , copper, cadmium, arsenic and zinc. Remarkably, microorganisms can be cultured from that water. (-)-Berkelic Acid 13 , isolated from a Penicillium fungus, showed selective activity against OVCAR-3 ovarian cancer. Barry B. Snider of Brandeis University set (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2009, 48, 1283) the absolute configuration of the central five-membered ring ether of 13 by conjugate addition of the enantiomerically-pure reagent 11 to the prochiral lactone 10. (-)-Aigialomycin D 17, isolated from the mangrove fungus Aigialus parvus , was found to be a selective inhibitor of the kinases CDK1, CDK5 and GSK3.