25532-45-0

Geissoschizine (8) is enzymatically converted to 19-epi-ajmalicine (7) first by oxidation to the 4,21-dehydro-intermediate (4) of the heteroyohimbine pathway followed by cyclisation and stereospecific reduction.

The characterization and partial purification of geissoschizine dehydrogenase from Catharanthus roseus cell suspension cultures are described.The 35-fold purified enzyme removes the 21α-hydrogen of geissoschizine in a NADP+-dependent reaction.NAD+, FAD or FMN cannot act as cofactors for the dehydrogenation.Structurally related indole alkaloids are not dehydrogenated.In comparison to enzymes of the ajmalicine pathway, geissoschizine dehydrogenase shows an extremely low specific activity. - Key Word Index: Catharanthus roseus; Apocynaceae; geissoschizine dehydrogenase; stereospecificity; biosynthesis; heteroyohimbine alkaloids; cell suspension culture.

Natural products have long been important inspirations for the development of chemical methodologies, theories, and technologies, and ultimately, discoveries of new drugs and materials. Chemical syntheses have traditionally yielded individual or small groups of natural products; however, methodology development allowing the synthesis of a large collection of natural products remains scarce. Here, we report an efficient photocatalytic radical cascade method that enables access to libraries of chiral and multiple-ring-fused tetrahydrocarbolinones. The radical cascade can controllably introduce complexity and functionality into products with excellent chemo-, regio-, and diastereoselectivity. The power of this distinct method has been demonstrated by the efficient syntheses of 33 monoterpenoid indole alkaloids belonging to four families.

A concise and general entry to representative indole alkaloids of the yohimboid, heteroyohimboid, corynantheoid, and 2-oxindole classes has been developed exploiting a strategy that features intramolecular Diels-Alder reactions for the facile construction of the D/E ring subunits of the target alkaloids. The efficacy of the approach is first illustrated by a two-step total synthesis of the yohimboid alkaloid oxogambirtannine (2) from 22. Thus, the Diels-Alder substrate 25, which was prepared by nucleophilic addition of vinyl ketene acetal 24 to the intermediate N-acyliminium salt formed in situ upon reaction of 22 with 23, was heated in the presence of benzoquinone to give a mixture of diastereoisomeric cycloadducts 26 and 27; these adducts underwent spontaneous oxidation to furnish 2. In another application of the strategy, the [4+2] heterocyclization of 34a, which was formed upon nucleophilic addition of 1-[(trimethylsilyl)oxy]butadiene to the N-acyliminium salt generated in situ upon treatment of 22 with crotonyl chloride, afforded a mixture (ca. 9:1) of cycloadducts 35a and 36a. The major adduct 35a was converted to 42a using a general procedure for effecting β-carbomethoxylation of enol ethers to give vinylogous carbonates. Subsequent reduction of 42a to the heteroyohimboid alkaloids (±)-tetrahydroalstonine (3) and (±)-cathenamine (4) was achieved by selective delivery of 2 or 1 equiv of hydride, respectively. When 42a was treated with sodium amide, stereoselective β-elimination ensued to give 49, which was converted by chemoselective hydride reduction into the corynantheoid alkaloid (±)-geissoschizine (5). Facile access to alkaloids of the 2-oxindole family was realized by using a new protocol for achieving stereoselective, oxidative rearrangements of β-carboline Nb lactams into 3,3-disubstituted 2-oxindoles. Thus, exposure of 42a to tert-butyl hypochlorite followed by acid and silver ion induced rearrangement of the intermediate 3-chloroindolenine gave 50, with only traces of the C(7) epimer being detected. Hydride reduction of 50 gave (±)-isopteropodine (6), acid-catalyzed isomerization of which furnished an equilibrium mixture (1:3) of 6 and (±)-pteropodine (51). The stereochemical course of the intramolecular hetero-Diels-Alder reaction of 34a to give 35a and 36a as the only isolable cycloadducts was examined by computational analysis. The geometry of the six-atom transition state was established by semiempirical methods by using the standard closed-shell, restricted Hartree-Fock (RHF) version of the AM1 method. With use of this constrained geometry for the six-membered pericyclic array, the overall conformational energies for the four possible transition states 52-55 were minimized by MM2 calculations (MacroModel). The calculated relative energies of these transition states were in the order 52 53 54 55. Since the cyclization of 34a produced only 35a and 36a in an approximately 9:1 ratio via the respective transition states 52 and 53, these calculations correlated qualitatively with the experimental results.

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From the amount of deuterium incorporated during the reduction of cathenamine to tetrahydroalstonine, the enamine and immonium ion form of cathenamine was demonstrated.The two forms could be interconverted depending on the presence or absence of SO4(-2).

Conceptually new schemes of synthesis of indole alkaloids are introduced. The yohimboid ring system is constructed by the sequential treatment of 1-tryptophyl-3-( beta -ketobutyl)pyridinium bromide with base and acid. Hydrogenation of the product yields d,l-pseudoyohimbone. The ajmalicinoid ring system is formed by the exposure of 1-tryptophyl-3-acetylpyridinium bromide to sodio dimethyl malonate and then to acid, followed by hydrogenation. Subsequent reduction and dehydration of the products lead to the racemates of the alkaloids tetrahydroalstonine and akuammigine as well as isomers of ajmalicine. Shifts of specific carbons are found to be of stereochemically diagnostic value.