Hypervalent iodide polycyclization

Sylvain Canesi and co-workers at the Universite du Quebec have reported in Organic Letters on a polycyclization cascade initiated by a hypervalent iodide.

OL paper

Bactolobin analogs

Jon Clardy and co-workers at Harvard have reported in Organic Letters on the isolation of some compounds by deleting certain genes in B. thailandensis.

OL paper

Benzyne mcr

Hideto Miyabe and co-workers from Hyogo University have reported in ACIEE on a multicomponent reaction between benzynes, DMF and beta-ketoesters or 1,3-diketones to afford 2H-chromene or isocoumarin derivatives.

ACIEE paper

2 rings from none

Erik Alexanian and colleague have reported in ACIEE on cyclization using a rhodium catalyst to couple two allenes and an alkene…basically a [2+2+2] cycloaddition.

ACIEE paper

Kainic acid from a vinyl aziridine

Varinder Aggarwal and co-workers from the University of Bristol have reported in ACIEE on a [3+2] reaction between a vinyl aziridine and a Michael acceptor while taking advantage of Tsuji-Trost allylation.  Additionally, they cleaved off the phenyl group on the resulting pyrrolidine ring using a RuCl3/H5IO6/NaIO4 oxidation protocol.

ACIEE paper

Copper/amine cooperative catalysis

Veronique Michelet and co-workers from CNRS have reported in the European Journal of Organic Chemistry on a copper/amine cooperative catalyzed Conia-ene type reaction.

European JOC paper

Phomopsin structure revision

Shunya Takahashi and co-workers from RIKEN have reported in Organic Letters on a structural reassignment of the polyketide, phomopsin.

OL paper

Three component coupling using benzynes

Hiroto Yoshida and co-worker at Hiroshima University have reported in Chem Comm on an approach to access ortho-quinone methides from benzynes and DMF.

Chem Comm paper

This molecule is pretty

Keiji Tanino and co-workers from Hokkaido University have reported in Nature Chemistry on the synthesis of solanoeclepin A – this molecule is similar to glycinoeclepin in activity and structure…the biological activity is related to dafachronic acid where it stimulates the hatching of nematodes.

Nature Chemistry paper

Esulatin J

Judit Hohmann and co-workers from the University of Szeged in Hungary have reported in the Journal of Natural Products on the isolation of some diterpenes including esulatin J, which had 46.8% inhibition of MCF7 cells at a concentration of 10 micrograms/mL.

JNP paper