A novel total synthesis of laurencenone C, a chamigrene sesquitepenoid natural product, has been accomplished in 11 steps. In the synthetic sequence, the B-ring of the spirocyclic core was constructed by a one-pot operation involving a Knoevenagel condensation between ethyl cyanoacetate and paraformaldehyde combined with a Diels-Alder reaction of the resulting ethyl 2-cyanoacrylate with isoprene. Moreover, a lithium naphthalenide-induced reductive alkylation of the Diels-Alder adduct was employed to create the C-6 quaternary center and to set the stage for assembling the A-ring.Laurencenone C (1) belongs to an abundant family of sesquitepenoids known as the chamigrenes, which includes more than one hundred members 1 and is characterized by a spiro[5.5]undecane core bearing two vicinal quaternary carbon centers at C-5 and C-6 positions. It was first isolated from the alga of the genus Laurencia obtuse, 1 along with three other structurally related chamigrenes, namely laurencenones A, B, and D (Figure 1). 2 These natural products contain the same A-ring bearing an enone moiety, and differ from each other by the functionalities on the B-ring. Like many other chamigrenes, 3 laurencenone C has attracted attention from the synthetic community with five total syntheses so far having been documented in the literature. 4-8 The first total synthesis was reported by Takeshita and co-workers. 4 In their synthetic sequence, a photo-cycloaddition of terpinolene with methyl 2,4-dioxopentanoate followed by a base-promoted retro-benzilic acid rearrangement of the resulting hydroxy spiro-[3.5]nonene ester was employed to prepare the key precursor for assembling the spiro framework. Following this, Chen's group described the synthesis of 1 by utilizing a crucial intramolecular radical cyclization of an a-allenic ketone to access the spiro ring fusion. 5 However, both syntheses provided 1 in relatively low overall yields (2.9 and 6.4%, respectively) due to the formation of other regio-and stereoisomers as side products in the key synthetic steps. In similar approaches, Srikrishna and co-workers twice described the total synthesis of 1 through the use of an Ireland ester Claisen rearrangement combined with a RCM reaction 6 or an intramolecular type II carbonyl ene reaction 7 as the key operations. Besides these approaches, the RCM strategy was also employed in an enantioselective synthesis of 1 recently reported by Stoltz and Grubbs et al. 8 As can be seen, the syntheses of 1, as well as other chamigrenes, 3 are critically dependent on the efficient creation of the quaternary spirocenter with the necessary functionalities for building the spiro[5.5]undecane core.