Lignan synthesis from Morita-Baylis-Hillman adducts: a general strategy to biological active lignans

Author(s)

Giordano Trazzi

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Química
• Defense date: 2008-01-08

Examining board members

Fernando Antonio Santos Coelho; Liliana Marzorati; Rosane Nora Castro; Ronaldo Aloise Pilli; Paulo Mitsuo Imamura

• Advisor: Fernando Antonio Santos Coelho

Abstract

Lignans are plant-produced natural products, which structural diversity and pronounced biological activity has being attracting the interest of academy and industry through the entire last century, taking as example the antineoplasic drug Etoposide® (Sandoz), a semi-synthetic derivative of podophyllotoxin, a natural lignan which is, up to date, commercially obtained only by vegetal extraction. Among the routes of synthesis to lignans, the most efficient ones uses a b-benzyl- g-butyrolactone as the key intermediate. In this scenario, we have envisaged the use of the Morita-Baylis-Hillman reaction to synthetize a-(aryl-hydroxymethyl)- acrylates (MBH adducts) and it¿s use as starting materials to the synthesis of b-(aryl-silanyloxymethyl)-g-butyrolactones, new key intermediates to the synthesis of lignans. Starting alongside from piperonal, b-bromo-piperonal and vanillin, we used the MBH reaction to prepare the corresponding a-(aryl-hydroxymethyl)-acrylates (MBH adducts), and used it in the preparation of it¿s corresponding b-(arylsilanyloxymethyl)- g-butyrolactones, in a diastereoselective way and with global yields from 56% to 69% in four steps. The b-(piperonyl-silanyloxymethyl)-g- butirolactone obtained was used with high efficiency in the synthesis of natural lignans (±)-yatein, (±)-podorrizol and (±)-epi-podorrizol. The b-(6-bromo-piperonylsilanyloxymethyl)- g-butirolactone obtained allowed the preperation of an advanced intermediate to a new synthetic strategy to (±)-podophyllotoxyn. The b-(guaiacylsilanyloxymethyl)- g-butirolactone obtained is a key intermediate to the racemic synthesis of medusaside A aglycone, a new dibenzylbutanediol lignan whose synthesis was not described yet (AU)