A scheme for the synthesis of maytansine synthons (3) is proposed. As background to this work, the stereoselective synthesis of several cyclohexene epoxides and their reactions with lithium dimethylcuprate are described. The sterically hindered cyclohexadiene monoepoxide (1 0) and the hydroxycyclohexene epoxide (1 3) were unreactive towards the cuprate reagent. However, epoxidation of the c-6-hydroxy-Imethylcyclohex-2-ene-r-I -carboxylate derivatives (1 8)- (23) gave, selectively, the trans-epoxides (24)-(29) which reacted regioselectively with lithium dimethylcuprate to give the alcohols (37)-(39). Epoxidations of the c-6-acyloxy-t-2-hydroxy-I -methylcyclohex-3-ene-r-l -carboxylates (44)-(46) were not stereoselective, whereas methyl c-6-benzyloxy-c-4-methoxy-I -methylcyclohex-2-ene-r-lcarboxylate (55) gave the trans-epoxide (56) which was converted into the alcohol (57) on treatment with lithium dimethylcuprate. Sodium borohydride reduction of the ketone (58) gave the cis-alcohol (59) which, on epoxidation and treatment with lithium dimethylcuprate, gave the lactone (61 ).The structure of the major epoxide (28) obtained on epoxidation of ethyl c-6-p-methoxybenzoyloxy-Imethylcyclohex-2-ene-r-I -carboxylate (22) was confirmed by an X-ray structure determination.Recently several elegant approaches to the synthesis of maytansine (l), and maytansinoids, have been described.' We were interested in developing a maytansine synthesis in which the key step was a Wharton fragmentation of a cyclohexyl toluene-p-sulphonate such as compound (2) to generate the synthon (3) which has several features of the ' western zone ' of maytansine. In particular, the stereochemistry of the fragmentation precursor (2) should ensure that the C(4)-C(5) doublebond is formed with the correct geometry, and that the chiral centres at C(6) and C(7) have the desired configuration. Moreover the C(9) carbonyl group is introduced during the fragmentation step. As a development of this approach, the introduction of the chiral centres at C(3) and C(10) stereoselectively into the fragmentation precursor was envisaged. We here describe attempts to synthesize polysubstituted cyclohexane derivatives related to the fragmentation precursor (2).
Results and DiscussionThe ketone (4) was selected as the initial target. The first approach examined involved the introduction of the bulky C( 1)-C(3) side-chain onto a cyclohexadiene ring which was then functionalized using the bulkiness of the side-chain to control the stereochemistry.