A reductive coupling strategy towards ripostatin A

• Kristin D. Schleicher and
• Timothy F. Jamison

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2013, 9, 1533–1550, doi:10.3762/bjoc.9.175

• Kristin D. Schleicher Timothy F. Jamison Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139, United States 10.3762/bjoc.9.175 Abstract Synthetic studies on the antibiotic natural product ripostatin A have been carried out with the aim to

• decarboxylation enables construction of the C15−C16 bond by an aldol reaction. The product of this transformation is of the correct oxidation state and potentially three steps removed from the targeted epoxide fragment. Keywords: catalysis; natural product; nickel; reductive coupling; ripostatin A; synthesis

• ribonucleic acid polymerase. These compounds inhibit chain initiation of RNA synthesis in Staphylococcus aureus, a particularly infectious bacterial strain with reported drug resistance to the antibiotics vancomycin and methicillin [3]. Ripostatin A exists as an equilibrium mixture of ketone and hemiketal