The
development of an entirely crystallization-based synthetic
route to the antimalarial BRD5018 is described, which assembles a
structurally complex bicyclic azetidine scaffold adorned with five
stereogenic centers without the need for any chromatographic separations.
A diastereoselective glycine ester Claisen rearrangement, diastereomeric
salt resolution, and diastereoselective iodo-lactonization are utilized
to provide an efficient access to three contiguous stereogenic centers
on an acyclic template with the desired relative and absolute configurations.
A tandem aziridine ring-opening/azetidine ring-closure on the derived
2-amino-1,4-diol template was developed to efficiently establish the
all-cis trisubstituted azetidine scaffold with the
proper ancillary functionality for end-game maneuvers. d-Ribose-2,3-acetonide
provided a conveniently differentiated vicinal syn-diol suitable for the planned reductive amination/periodate cleavage/Staudinger-aza-Wittig
sequence to form the eight-membered diazocene ring. An early quantitative
installation of the diaryl acetylene moiety via a Sonogashira coupling
on an electronically matched methyl 4-bromocinnamate circumvented
a low-yielding, late-stage reaction in the first-generation synthesis.
Multiple crystalline intermediates enabled the complete removal of
chromatography from the synthesis resulting in a substantially reduced
cost and waste generation with enhanced throughput and quality control.
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