Improved synthesis of the northern hemisphere of epothilone A by a sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylation

Article abstract of DOI:10.1016/S0040-4039(99)01659-7

An improved synthesis of the northern hemisphere of epothilone A is described. This approach utilizes the Sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylation of 5-hexen-2-one (allyl acetone) to generate the precursor for the Wittig reaction and the subsequent ring closing metathesis reaction (RCM). This strategy allows to generate precursor 13 as both enantiomers from ready available starting material in a very efficient manner.