10.1002/chem.201900896
Chemistry - A European Journal
COMMUNICATION
With the spirocyclic indolenine 11 in hand, we turned our attention
to the formation of E ring. Inspired by kwon’s elegant approach to
ibophyllidine, similar strategy was investigated to close the E ring
in our synthesis. [9d] When spirocyclic indolenine was exposed
under the conditions (PMe3, toluene /MeOH 14:1) as reported, to
our disappointment, the reaction was rather sluggish and only
trace amount of the desired product was detected by LC-MS.
According to the crystallographic analysis of substrate 10, We
assumed that two reasons might be considered account for this.
First, the ethyl group on the quaternary carbon is overlapping with
the antibonding orbital of α, β-unsaturated ester, making the
active alkene more obstructed for the attack by the phosphine.
Second, compared to O-H in protic solvent, N-H on the product is
a much weaker hydrogen bond donor which frustrated the
reaction through the autocatalytic way. Consequently, both
Academy of Sciences (XDB 20020100) is gratefully
acknowledged.
Keywords: Chiral-cation directed catalysis, Asymmetric
Mannich reaction, Alkaloids, Vincadifformine, Total synthesis.
[1] J. E. Saxton, in The Alkaloids,Vol. 51( Ed.: G. A. Cordell),
Academic Press, New York, 1998, Chapter 1.
[2] C. Djerassi, H. Budzikiewicz, J. M. Wilson, J. Gosset, J. Le
Men, M. M. Janot, Tetrahedron Lett. 1962, 3, 235-239.
[3] M. G. Hollingshead, M. C. Alley, R. F. Camalier, B. J. Abbott,
J. G. Mayo, L. Malspeis, M. R. Grever, Life Sci. 1995, 57, 131-
141.
[4] a) G. Lewin, G. Atassi, A. Pierre, Y. Rolland, C. Schaeffer, J.
Poisson, J. Nat. Prod. 1995, 58, 1089-1091; b) G. Lewin, R.
Hocquemiller, C. Schaeffer, A. Pierre, Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett.
2002 12 371-374.
sterically undemanding phosphine and quantities of protic solvent
[12]
was inevitable to accelerate the reaction.
After exhaustive
[5] For the total synthesis of Vincadifformine in asymmetric form,
see: a) G. Pandey, P. C. Kumara, Org. Lett.2011,13, 4672-
4675; b) S. B. Jones, B. Simmons, A. Mastracchio, D. W. C.
MacMillan, Nature 2011,475,183-188; c) S. Zhao, R. B.
Andrade, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2013, 135, 13334-13337; d) N. Z.
Wang, S. Du, D. Li, X. F. Jiang, Org. Lett. 2017, 19, 3167-3170.
[6] For the total synthesis of Vincadifformine in racemic form,
see: a) J. P. Kutney, K. K. Chan, A. Failli, J. M. Fromson, C.
Gletsos, V. R. Nelson, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1968, 90, 3891; b) M.
E. Kuehne, D. M. Roland, R. Hafter, J. Org. Chem. 1978, 43,
3705-3710; c) M. E. Kuehne, T. H. Matsko, J. C. Bohnert, C. L.
Kirke- mo, J. Org. Chem.1979,44, 1063-1068; d) G. Kalaus, I.
Greiner, M. Kajtar-Peredy, J. Brlik, L. Szabo, C. Szantay, J. Org.
Chem. 1993, 58, 1434-1442; e) M. E. Kuehne, T. Wang, P. J.
Seaton, J. Org. Chem. 1996, 61, 6001-6008; f) S. Kobayashi, G.
Peng, T. Fukuyama, Tetrahedron Lett. 1999, 40, 1519-1522; g)
H. Mizoguchi, H. Oikawa, H. Oguri, Nat. Chem. 2014, 6, 57-64;
h) O. Wagnieres, Z. Xu, Q. Wang, J. Zhu, J. Am. Chem. Soc.
2014, 136, 15102-15108; i) P. W. Tan, J. Seayad, D. J. Dixon,
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2016, 55, 13436-13440.
study, the reaction was found to best perform in MeOH with
trimethylphosphine as the nucleophile. The resulted pentacyclic
skeleton was unambiguously confirmed by X-ray crystallography
analysis.
It is rather remarkable that in our initial foray toward the
pentacycle, Rulbita startegy was exploited to construct Spirocyclic
indolnine giving substrate 13. (as indicated in scheme 5) Treating
13 under the optimal condition resulted in intermediate 14, which
was detected by LRMS, HRMS and HNMR with no observed
formation of pentacycle. We proposed that a larger bonding angle
(C-C=O-N: ~120oC) in C ring would push the α, β-unsaturated
ester chain more close to indolenine, which facilitated the
attacking of enolate to imine.
Completion of the synthesis would now require selective
reduction of the lactam and migration of the double bond to deliver
the requisite enamine. Amide 12 was then transformed to
thioamide in the presence of Lawesson’s reagent, subsequent
reductive desulfurization with Raney-Ni and oxidation of the
indoline unit with DDQ to afford Vincadifformine in 65% yield over
three steps.
Notably, the 1H and 13C NMR data of the synthetic
Vincadifformine were identical to that of natural Vincadifformine,
which are different with those from Andrade’s synthesis. We found
that this problem could be solved by adding a trace amount of
TFA during collecting NMR spectroscopic data. [13]
[7] J. E. Saxton, Indoles, Part 4: The Monoterpenoid Indole
Alkaloids, Wiley, Chichester, 1983.
[8] a) D. D. Cao, Z. Chai, J. X. Zhang, Z. Q. Ye, H. Xiao, H. Y.
Wang, G. Zhao, Chem. Commun. 2013, 49, 5972-5974; b) X. Y.
Wu, Q. Liu, Y. Liu, Q. Wang, Y. Zhang, J. Chen, W. G. Cao, G.
Zhao, Adv. Synth. Catal. 2013, 355, 2701. c) D. D. Cao, J. X.
Zhang, H. Y. Wang, G. Zhao, Chem. Eur. J. 2015, 21, 9998-
10004; d) H. Y. Wang, K. Zhang, C. W. Zheng, Z. Chai, D. D.
Cao, J. X. Zhang, G. Zhao, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015, 54,
1775-1779; e) Y. P. Lou, C. W. Zheng, R. M. Pan, Q. W. Jin, G.
Zhao, Z. Li, Org. Lett. 2015, 17, 688− 691; f) H. Y. Wang, C. W.
Zheng, Z. Chai, J. X. Zhang, G. Zhao, Nat. Commun. 2016, 7,
12720; g) J. Zhang, H. Y. Wang, Q. W. Jin, C. W. Zheng, G.
Zhao, Y. J. Shang, Org.Lett. 2016, 18, 4774-4777; h) D.D.Cao,
G. S. Fang, J. X. Zhang, H.Y. Wang, C. W. Zheng, G. Zhao, J.
Org. Chem. 2016, 81, 9973-9983.
[9] For examples of using Morita-Baylis-Hillman reaction in Total
Synthesis of Natural Products, see: a) T. Motozaki, K.
Sawamura, A. Suzuki, K. Yoshida, T. Ueki, A. Ohara, R.
Munakata, K-i. Takao, K-i. Tadano, Org. Lett. 2005, 7, 2265-
2267; b) X. Lei, J. A. Porco, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2006, 128,
14790-14791; c) S. J. Roe, R. A. Stockman, Chem. Commun.
2008, 3432-3434; d) I. P. Andrews, O. Kwon, Chem. Sci. 2012,
3, 2510-2514.
In summary, we have achieved asymmetric total syntheses of
Vincadifformine. The key C19 stereogenic center capitalized on
a chiral-cation-directed asymmetric Mannich reaction which
catalyzed by our recently developed amino acids derived chiral
bifunctional thiourea-phosphonium salts. Additional salient
features of this synthesis including phosphine promoted Aza-
Morita-Barrie-Hillman reaction for construction of the E ring and
TFA promoted deprotection/amidation cascade process for
construction of D ring. We anticipate that the novel transformation
developed in this project will find further application in synthesis.
Acknowledgements
[10] C. G. Goodman, D. T. Do, J. S. Johnson, Org. Lett.
2013,15, 2446-2249.
[11] M. A.Toczko, C. H. Heathcock, J. Org. Chem. 2000, 65,
2642-2465.
Financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation
of China (Nos. 21272247, 21572247, 21871282) and Chinese
This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.