Ring Expansion

Okiko Miyata and co-workers from Kobe Pharmaceutical University have recently published in JOC on a rearrangement that looks like a Beckmann rearrangement but not really.  The reaction is a ring expansion of an N-indanyl(methoxy)amine to tetrahydroquinoline structures – a five to six membered ring expansion using an organolithium or Grignard reagent.

JOC paper

Renieramycin M

Jieping Zhu and co-worker at CNRS have recently published in Organic Letters on the synthesis of Renieramycin M – a tetrahydroisoquinoline alkaloid with potent bioactivity.  They used aziridine subunits to introduce the nitrogen atoms in this molecule.

 

OL paper