Asymmetric Synthesis of Sesaminone: Confirmation of Its Structure and Determination of Its Absolute Configuration.

An asymmetric synthesis of the naturally occurring antipode of the tetrahydrofuran lignan sesaminone ((-)-1) has been achieved. An X-ray crystal structure of the synthetic material validated the structure proposed in the literature for this lignan. Additionally, the absolute configuration of the natural product was established by correlation of the synthetic tetrahydrofuran with the known absolute configuration of L-Phe.