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.
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.
