A Unified Strategy toward the Synthesis of Acerogenin-Type Macrocycles:  Total Syntheses of Acerogenins A, B, C, and L and Aceroside IV

A general strategy for the synthesis of acerogenin-type diarylheptanoids containing an endocyclic biaryl ether bond has been developed, and convergent total syntheses of acerogenin A, B, C, and L and aceroside IV have been accomplished. Cycloetherification of the linear diarylheptanoid 1-(4-fluoro-3-nitrophenyl)-7-(3-hydroxy-4-methoxyphenyl)heptan-3-one (18) under mild conditions (CsF, DMF, 0.01 M, rt, 5 h) gave the macrocycle 4-methoxy-17-nitro-2-oxatricyclo[13.2.2(3,7)]eicosa-1(18),3,5,7(20),15(19),16-hexaen-12-one (19) in 95% yield. Removal of the nitro group followed by O-demethylation gave acerogenin C (2), whose reduction afforded acerogenin A (1). Glucosidation of 2 with 2,3,4,6-alpha-D-tetrabenzoylglucopyranosyl bromide followed by saponification gave aceroside IV (3) in excellent overall yield. Acerogenins B (4) and L (5) were synthesized in a similar fashion featuring a key intramolecular S(N)Ar reaction of linear compound 29. The entropy driving force resulting from the preorganization of cyclization precursors in favor of the bent conformation was proposed to contribute significantly to the efficiency of this cyclization. Both computational studies and spectroscopic data (NOE) supported this hypothesis. Experimentally, it was observed that even at high concentration (1 M of 18 in DMF) the analytically pure macrocycle 19 could still be obtained in 45-50% isolated yield. Furthermore, when the cyclization of 18 was carried out in the presence of an external nucleophile (4-methoxyphenol, 33) or an electrophile (4-fluoro-3-nitrotoluene, 34), only the 15-membered cyclophane 19 was isolable. This provides experimental evidence that compound 18 is indeed preorganized in such a way that intramolecular reaction was highly competitive with the alternative intermolecular process.