The protecting group free synthesis of Anomala Osakana Pheromone isomer has been achieved with high enantioselectivity (92% ee). A chiral γ-hydroxy-α, β-acetylenic ester was used as the key intermediate, which was obtained via asymmetric alkynylation of aldehyde. This was followed by readily handled selective hydrogenation and lactonization in three steps with a high overall yield (86%). total synthesis, swern oxidation, asymmetric alkynylation, chiral γ-butyrolactone, γ-hydroxy-α, β-acetylenic ester Citation: Lin L, Li A N, Zhao Q Y, et al. Asymmetric synthesis of Anomala Osakana Pheromone isomer using protecting group free strategy. Chiral γ-butyrolactone frameworks are present in plenty of natural products [1,2] such as flavor components [3], sex pheromones [4] of different insects and plant-growth regulators [5,6]. They are also represented as important synthetic intermediates for many bioactive compounds [7−9], which makes them significant lead structures for new drug discoveries. It is noteworthy that only one enantiomer of these chiral compounds displays strong bioactivity in general [10]. A few enantioselective synthetic approaches to the chiral γ-butyrolactones have been reported [11−14].We have expanded the synthetic application of the asymmetric alkynylation to high enantioselective synthesis of two insect pheromones, Anomala Osakana Pheromone and Janus Integer Pheromone [15] (Scheme 1). The synthesis involved exploring chiral γ-hydroxy-α, β-acetylenic esters as key intermediates 10 (Scheme 2), which were obtained via asymmetric addition of methyl propiolate (MPA) to aldehydes 11 with 84% ee. Therefore, the enantioselectivity needs to be improved.In our previous studies, lower enantioselectivity was obtained in the asymmetric addition of MPA to aliphatic al-*Corresponding author (
Scheme 1 Structures of two insect pheromones.Scheme 2 Key synthetic step analysis. dehyde than that to aromatic aldehyde as well as α, β-unsaturated aldehyde [16]. This may be caused by the rapid background reaction while using aliphatic aldehyde as the substrate. Because aliphatic aldehyde is more reactive than either aromatic or α,β-unsaturated aldehyde in the nucleophilic addition [17,18], we suggested to explore α, β-unsaturated aldehyde 6 (Scheme 3) as the substrate in the asymmetric alkynylation to improve the enantioselectivity in the synthesis of the key intermediate, chiral γ-hydroxy-α,β-acetylenic ester 7.