The scalable synthesis of the oxaquinolizidine marine natural product desmethylxestospongin B is based on the early application of Ireland-Claisen rearrangement, macrolactamization, and a late-stage installation of the oxaquinolizidine units by lactam reduction. The synthesis serves as the source of material to investigate calcium signaling and its effect on mitochondrial metabolism in various cell types, including cancer cells.

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).

Calcium is an important second messenger regulating a bioenergetic response to the workloads triggered by neuronal activation. In embryonic mouse cortical neurons using glucose as only fuel, activation by NMDA elicits a strong workload (ATP demand)-dependent on Na 1 and Ca 21 entry, and stimulates glucose uptake, glycolysis, pyruvate and lactate production, and oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) in a Ca 21 -dependent way. We find that Ca 21 upregulation of glycolysis, pyruvate levels, and respiration, but not glucose uptake, all depend on Aralar/AGC1/Slc25a12, the mitochondrial aspartate-glutamate carrier, component of the malate-aspartate shuttle (MAS). MAS activation increases glycolysis, pyruvate production, and respiration, a process inhibited in the presence of BAPTA-AM, suggesting that the Ca 21 binding motifs in Aralar may be involved in the activation. Mitochondrial calcium uniporter (MCU) silencing had no effect, indicating that none of these processes required MCU-dependent mitochondrial Ca 21 uptake. The neuronal respiratory response to carbachol was also dependent on Aralar, but not on MCU. We find that mouse cortical neurons are endowed with a constitutive ER-to-mitochondria Ca 21 flow maintaining basal cell bioenergetics in which ryanodine receptors, RyR2, rather than InsP 3 R, are responsible for Ca 21 release, and in which MCU does not participate. The results reveal that, in neurons using glucose, MCU does not participate in OXPHOS regulation under basal or stimulated conditions, while Aralar-MAS appears as the major Ca 21 -dependent pathway tuning simultaneously glycolysis and OXPHOS to neuronal activation.

Direct enantioselective α-alkylation of 2-alkylpyridines provides access to chiral pyridines via an operationally simple protocol that obviates the need for prefunctionalization or preactivation of the substrate. The alkylation is accomplished using chiral lithium amides as noncovalent stereodirecting auxiliaries. Crystallographic and solution NMR studies provide insight into the structure of well-defined chiral aggregates in which a lithium amide reagent directs asymmetric alkylation.

The scalable synthesis of the oxaquinolizidine marine natural product desmethylxestospongin B is based on the early application of Ireland-Claisen rearrangement, macrolactamization, and a late-stage installation of the oxaquinolizidine units by lactam reduction. The synthesis serves as the source of material to investigate calcium signaling and its effect on mitochondrial metabolism in various cell types, including cancer cells.