A systematic investigation into the Ireland-Claisen rearrangement of α-alkoxy esters is reported. In all cases, the use of KN(SiMe) in toluene gave rearrangement products corresponding to a Z-enolate intermediate with excellent diastereoselectivity, presumably because of chelation control. On the other hand, chelation-controlled enolate formation could be overcome for most substrates through the use of lithium diisopropylamide (LDA) in tetrahydrofuran (THF).

Herein, we describe an enantiospecific route to one enantiomer of a common decalin core that is present in numerous highly oxygenated terpenoids. This intermediate is accessed in eight steps from (R)-carvone, an inexpensive, enantioenriched building block, which can be elaborated to the desired bicycle through sequential Fe­(III)-catalyzed reductive olefin coupling and Dieckmann condensation. The same synthetic route may be applied to (S)-carvone to afford the enantiomer of this common intermediate for other applications.

Reported here are substrate-dictated rearrangements of chrysanthenol derivatives prepared from verbenone to access complex bicyclic frameworks. These rearrangements set the stage for a 10-step formal synthesis of the natural product xishacorene B. Key steps include an anionic allenol oxy-Cope rearrangement and a Suaŕez directed C−H functionalization. The success of this work was guided by extensive computational calculations which provided invaluable insight into the reactivity of the chrysanthenol-derived systems, especially in the key oxy-Cope rearrangement.