A unified strategy for the synthesis of highly oxygenated diaryl ethers featured in ellagitannins.

Ellagitannins are a family of polyphenols containing more than 1,000 natural products. Nearly 40% of these compounds contain a highly oxygenated diaryl ether that is one of the most critical elements to their structural diversity. Here, we report a unified strategy for the synthesis of highly oxygenated diaryl ethers featured in ellagitannins.

Total synthesis of the proposed structure of roxbin B; the nonidentical outcome.

A proposed structure of roxbin B was synthesized. For the synthesis, a new synthetic method for the preparation of the hexahydroxydiphenoyl (HHDP) bridge was developed that involved the stepwise esterification of axially chiral HHDP acid anhydride. The synthesized compound was not identical to the natural roxbin B.

Synthesis of chiral and modifiable hexahydroxydiphenoyl compounds.

A reliable method for synthesizing each enantiomer of the hexahydroxydiphenoyl (HHDP) compounds has been developed. The synthesis involved atropselective construction of the aryl-aryl bond of the HHDP compounds. This construction relied on the CuCl(2)·n-BuNH(2)-mediated intramolecular coupling of bis(4-O-benzylgallate) on two simple chiral auxiliaries, both of which were derived from l-(+)-tartaric acid.