Total synthesis of natural products based on hydrogenation of aromatic rings

• Haoxiang Wu and
• Xiangbing Qi

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 88–122, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.4

• other functionalities. The following sections highlight representative examples of both modes in complex molecule synthesis. Total synthesis of (±)-keramaphidin B by Baldwin, 1996 Although the methodologies for aromatic ring hydrogenations have only recently flourished, the reduction of aromatic rings

• to obtain saturated aliphatic or heterocyclic rings and their subsequent application in the total synthesis of natural products has a long history. A brilliant early work is Baldwin's total synthesis of the macrocyclic diamine natural product (±)-keramaphidin B in the year of 1996 (Scheme 9) [71][72

• 81 was prepared via a Polonovski–Polish reaction and isomerization, which, when adopting the proper conformation, spontaneously underwent an intramolecular [4 + 2] cycloaddition to construct the unsaturated bridged ring of (±)-keramaphidin B in a single transformation. Subsequently, the iminium ion

Towards the total synthesis of keramaphidin B

• Pavol Jakubec,
• Alistair J. M. Farley and
• Darren J. Dixon

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2016, 12, 1096–1100, doi:10.3762/bjoc.12.104

• pronucleophile to a substituted furanyl nitroolefin catalysed by a bifunctional cinchonine-derived thiourea has been used as the key stereocontrolling step in a new synthetic strategy to the heavily functionalised piperidine core of keramaphidin B. Keywords: bifunctional organocatalyst; enantioselective Michael

• addition; keramaphidin B; nitro-Mannich lactamisation cascade; Introduction Keramaphidin B (1) is a marine alkaloid first isolated by Kobayashi in 1994 from the Okinawan marine sponge Amphimedon sp and has been shown to be cytotoxic against KB human epidermoid carcinoma cells (IC50 0.28 μg/mL) and P388

• , in their landmark paper entitled ‘On the Biosynthesis of Manzamines’ postulated that keramaphidin B was a common intermediate in the biosynthesis of the manzamine alkaloids [2]. Several years later, Baldwin and co-workers synthesised keramaphidin B following a biomimetic pathway via an intramolecular