The stereocontrolled synthesis of the C（17）--C（28） fragment 3 of didemnaketal B was accomplished in 21 steps from the natural （R）-（＋）-pulegone and （S）-（--）-citronellal. The key steps involved diastereoselective construction of two chiral carbon centers through the intramolecular chiral induction and uncommon Julia olefination of ketone forming the E-trisubstituted C（22）--C（23） double bound.
A convergent strategy to the key allylic silyl ether precursor 4 in our synthetic efforts toward morphinan alkaloid is presented. The vital step is the selective 1,2-addition of the organocerium agent of 6 to ketene 5.
Zhen Lei SONG Yong Qiang TU Shuan Hu GAO Yi Jun JIANG Shu Yu ZHANG
The easily prepared and recoverable chiral N-sulfonylated fl-amino alcohol 2 in combination with Ti（OPr-i）4 was found to be an effective chiral catalyst for the enantioselective addition of alkynylzinc to ketones, which gave the useful products, i.e. chiral tertiary propargyl alcohols, with the ee up to 92%.
The fully substituted cyclopentenedione core of madindoline A （1） and B （2） as potent and selective inhibitor of IL-6 has been synthesized efficiently. The quaternary carbon center C-2＇ was constructed on the basis of a newly developed AIEt3-promoted tandem reductive rearrangement of α-hydroxy epoxides.
