A novel and general synthetic pathway to strychnos indole alkaloids: total syntheses of (-)-tubifoline, (-)-dehydrotubifoline, and (-)-strychnine using palladium-catalyzed asymmetric allylic substitution.

A method of palladium-catalyzed asymmetric allylic substitution for synthesizing 2-substituted cyclohexenylamine derivatives was established. Treatment of a 2-silyloxymethylcyclohexenol derivative with ortho-bromo-N-tosylaniline in the presence of Pd(2)dba(3).CHCl(3) and (S)-BINAPO in THF afforded a cyclohexenylamine derivative with 84% ee in 80% yield.

Mechanistic investigations on the reaction between amines or amides and an alkylperoxy-lambda3-iodane.

A mechanism involving the intermediate formation of an amine radical cation by single-electron transfer is proposed for the oxidation of secondary amines with alkylperoxy-lambda(3)-iodane. On the other hand, the oxidation of acetamides probably proceeds by a radical process, which involves the direct hydrogen abstraction of the methylene group alpha to the nitrogen atom.