Urlam Murali Krishna1, Arun A. Yadav2, Prajakta S. Sarang2, Prashant S. Patil2, Girish K. Trivedi3, and Manikrao M. Salunkhe2. (1) Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, (2) The Institute of Science, Mumbai, India, (3) The Indian Institute of Technology, Powai, India
Over the past two decades the chemistry of 3-oxidopyrylium ylide has been receiving considerable interest from the synthetic organic chemists around the world. Oxidopyrylium is a reactive species, readily undergoes cycloaddition reaction with suitable dipolarophiles to generate oxa-bridge cycloheptanoid derivatives with proper stereo- and regiochemistry. The work presented here deals with our findings of one-pot reduction of enones of the [5+2] cycloadducts to the corresponding tetrahydro derivatives with nickel boride (generated in situ) using THF as solvent. It is worth to mention that reaction of the cycloadducts with Sodium borohydride and/or Lithium aluminum hydride always led a mixture of 1,2- and 1,4-reduction products. The yields of nickel boride reductions are generally more than 90%. The resultant tetrahydro-derivatives are transformed to the corresponding cycloheptenoids by removing the bridging ether.
