A benzo [b]fluorene skeleton such as 10, a basic four-ring system in the revised diazo structures 3 of kinamycin antibiotics, was synthesized by Diels-Alder reaction between dienophile 4,7,8-trioxygenated 1H-benz[f]inden-1-one 11 and Danishefsky-type diene 7. The indenone 11 was prepared by deoxygenation of 2,3-dihydro-1H-benz[f]inden-1-one 12 with the inexpensive 1-hydroxy-1,2-benziodoxol-3(1H)-one 1-oxide (IBX) after modification of the known protocol. Indenone 12 in turn was obtained from naphthalene-1,5-diol (14) via an intramolecular Friedel-Crafts cyclization of naphthalene-2-propanoic acid 13 as a key step.1. Introduction. ± Kinamycin antibiotics [1], strongly active against gram-positive bacteria, were isolated from Streptomyces murayamaensis [2] and established to be composed of a 6-6-5-6 ring system with a highly oxygenated cyclohexene moiety (D ring) [3]. However, there has been some confusion regarding their structures as mentioned in our previous papers [4]; i.e., benzo[b]carbazolequinone-derived cyanamides 1 and 2 had been first characterized as the basic structures of kinamycins [3] and prekinamycin [5] (a biosynthetic precursor of kinamycins [6]), respectively; however, these structures were revised to diazobenzo[b]fluorenediones 3 and 4 after reexamination of X-ray crystallographic analysis and synthesis of an N-cyanamide structure proposed for prekinamycin [7]. Furthermore, a quite recent investigation [8] indicated that an isomeric benzo[a]fluorene 5 could be a more reasonable structure for prekinamycin than 4 and, accordingly, it was proposed that compounds 4 and 5 should be newly named as isoprekinamycin and prekinamycin, respectively. Thus, synthetic approaches to kinamycin derivatives with the revised diazobenzo[b]fluorene skeleton are necessary for their structural establishment.We had started to synthesize benzo[b]fluorene skeletons before the further revision [8] of the prekinamycin structure and achieved in a model study the stereoselective preparation of the diazofluorene 9 with a 3,4,5,6-tetraoxygenated cyclohexene-ring moiety and the correct relative configuration (cis,trans,trans for the OH groups) of the kinamycin skeleton [4]. In this synthesis, the Diels ± Alder reaction of 4-(benzyloxy)-1H-inden-1-one (6) with Danishefsky-type diene 7 [9] had been used for the ringsystem construction such as that of 8 (Scheme 1).We now report the synthesis of a trioxygenated 1H-benz[f]inden-1-one 11 by dehydrogenation of the corresponding indanone 12, which was independently prepared from naphthalene-1,5-diol (14) by an improved synthetic method. The dehydrogenation of 12 was achieved with 1-hydroxy-1,2-benziodoxol-3(1H)-one 1-oxide (IBX), and the Diels ± Alder reaction of the resulting 11 with 7 led to the benzo[b]fluorene derivative 10, which contains the basic ring system of the revised structures 3 of the kinamycin antibiotics.