The first asymmetric total synthesis of an indole alkaloid, (-)-20-epiuleine, containing the 2,3,4-trisubstituted piperidine core, was achieved using a stereocontrolled one-pot asymmetric 6π-azaelectrocyclization followed by a stereoselective 1,4-addition reaction of the unsaturated ester with a Grignard reagent resulting from the novel neighboring participation of the hydroxyl group in cis-aminoindanol as a chiral nitrogen source.

An efficient one-pot synthetic procedure for the synthesis of 2,4-disubstituted pyridines has been successfully established. The method proceeds through a 6pi-azaelectrocyclization-aromatization sequence. Using this method, a wide variety of pyridine structures substituted at the 2-position have been rapidly constructed from vinyl stannanes, vinyl iodide, sulfonamide, and a palladium catalyst. The method was further applied to the solid-phase synthesis wherein the use of a "traceless" sulfonamide linker enabled the rapid preparation of a small library of pyridines with high purity, without any chromatographic separation.

In 3-ethoxycarbonyl-2,4-dienal compounds, a thermal [1,5]-H shift of aldehyde hydrogen easily proceeded to produce the corresponding vinyl ketenes due to the remarkable substituent effect caused by the C3 ester group. The produced ketenes were captured by an alcohol and olefins to afford the corresponding esters and four-membered ring compounds, respectively.

The first asymmetric total synthesis of (-)-hippodamine has been accomplished via the concise construction of its azaphenalene core, which is featured by the 2,4,6-chiral piperidine synthesis based on one-pot asymmetric azaelectrocyclization in the partially activated substituent system and the subsequent intramolecular Mannich reaction.

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