The Danishefsky Taxol total synthesis in organic chemistry is an important third Taxol synthesis published by the group of Samuel Danishefsky in 1996 two years after the first two efforts described in the Holton Taxol total synthesis and the Nicolaou Taxol total synthesis. Combined they provide a good insight in the application of organic chemistry in total synthesis.
Danishefsky's route to Taxol has many similarities with that of Nicolaou. Both are examples of convergent synthesis with a coupling of the A and the C ring from two precursors. The main characteristic of the Danishefsky variant is the completion of the oxetane D ring onto the cyclohexanol C ring prior to the construction of the 8-membered B ring. The most prominent starting material is the (+) enantiomer of the Wieland-Miescher ketone. This compound is commercially available as a single enantiomer and the single chiral group present in this molecule is able to drive the entire sequence of organic reactions to a single optically active Taxol endproduct. The final step, the tail addition is identical to that of Nicolaou and is based on Ojima chemistry.
In terms of raw material shopping, this taxol molecule consists of the aforementioned Wieland-Miescher ketone, 2-methyl-3-pentanone, lithium aluminium hydride, osmium tetroxide, phenyllithium, pyridinium chlorochromate, the Corey-Chaykovsky reagent and acryloyl chloride. Key chemical transformations are the Johnson-Corey-Chaykovsky reaction and the Heck reaction.
Read more about Danishefsky Taxol Total Synthesis: Retrosynthesis, D Ring Synthesis, Preparation For AB Ring Synthesis, AB Ring Synthesis, B Ring Elaboration, Tail Addition
Famous quotes containing the words total and/or synthesis:
“When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because that is the period in which we first learnt to suffer the experience of total loss. It was more than that. It was the period in which we suffered more total losses than in all the rest of our life put together.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“The spider-mind acquires a faculty of memory, and, with it, a singular skill of analysis and synthesis, taking apart and putting together in different relations the meshes of its trap. Man had in the beginning no power of analysis or synthesis approaching that of the spider, or even of the honey-bee; but he had acute sensibility to the higher forces.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)