A highly chemoselective sequence of Stille and Heck couplings on the heterocyclic bromoenol triflates 2 a-c with the bicycloalkenylstannanes cis-3 and trans-3 furnished the intermediate bromobutadienes 4 a-c in good yields ranging from 73-94 %. A modified Heck coupling protocol employing the palladacycle 8 and an additional bidentate ligand such as 1,4-bis(diphenylphosphinyl)butane allowed a significant reduction in catalyst loading while still obtaining the heterocyclic 1,3,5-hexatrienes 5 a-c in good yields (71-94 %). The unsymmetrically substituted 1,3,5-hexatrienes 5 a-c in solution underwent 6pi-electrocyclizations following an optimized microwave-heating protocol to yield the steroidal tetracycles cis-7 a-c and trans-7 b (59-69 %). Tetracycles cis-7 a-c are the products of a subsequent 1,5-hydrogen shift to the thermodynamically more stable, more highly substituted diene units. Removal of the tert-butyl groups provided the novel steroidal delta-amino acid 9 a and the delta-amino acid derivatives 9 b, c in good yields (76-86 %).

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Abstract1‐Bromo‐1‐cyclopropylcyclopropane (1), which is easily accessible in two steps from methyl cyclopropanecarboxylate, does not form a stable Grignard reagent upon reaction with elemental magnesium, yet it readily undergoes bromine/lithium exchange without rearrangement upon treatment with tert‐butyllithium in diethyl ether/pentane at –78 °C, and the resulting 1‐lithio‐1‐cyclopropylcyclopropane can be trapped with various electrophiles to give the correspondingly 1‐substituted bicyclopropyl derivatives 10 in yields ranging from 38 to over 90 % (13 examples). The (1‐cyclopropylcyclopropyl)boronate 10m, which is also obtained from the 1‐lithio derivative, has been subjected to Suzuki cross couplings with a number of aryl halides to furnish 1‐aryl‐1,1′‐bicyclopropyl compounds 11 (4 examples, 14–50 % yield), predominantly without rearrangement. Further transformations of 1‐cyclopropylcyclopropanecarbaldehyde (10e) have provided 2‐(1‐cyclopropylcyclopropyl)glycine (16), ethyl 3‐(1‐cyclopropylcyclopropyl)acrylate (17), and its cycloadducts with the nitrone 18 and cyclopentadiene 19, albeit the latter only in poor yield.

A variety of enantiomerically pure steroidal compounds was synthesized utilizing a sequence of Stille and Heck cross-coupling reactions and subsequent thermal 6pi-electrocyclizations. Highly chemoselective Stille couplings on the triflate moiety of several 2-bromocyclohex-1-enyl triflates with cis- and trans-fused bicyclo[4.3.0]nonenylstannanes furnished the corresponding tricyclic bromobutadienes in good to excellent yields (70-97%). These were subjected to Heck reactions with tert-butyl acrylate to provide pentasubstituted tricyclic 1,3,5-hexatrienes. A significant increase in efficiency could be achieved by applying a novel protocol with a precatalyst on the basis of the palladacycle prepared from Pd(OAc)2 and P(o-Tol)3 with added triarylphosphines as co-ligands (73-90% yield). Upon heating to 205-215 degrees C in decalin or to 140 degrees C in toluene (for certain cases), these hexatrienes yielded (78-90%) various unsaturated steroid analogues as single diastereomers. A particular oxohexatriene, obtained after deprotection of an adjacent carbonyl group, underwent 6pi-electrocyclization at the unusually low temperature of 140 degrees C to yield (75%) an interesting 7-carboxyl-substituted steroidal dienone. Attempts to remove the remaining protecting groups from some of the other new steroidal compounds under acidic conditions furnished a novel 3-oxo-7-carboxyl steroid analogue and a 3-hydroxy-substituted steroidal diene. A novel estradiol derivative could be obtained in 69% yield from the synthesized steroidal dienone. Deprotection furnished the corresponding unprotected 7-carboxylestradiol in 81% yield.

[reaction: see text] An efficient, diversity-oriented approach to novel steroid analogues possessing a C-5beta configuration begins with the Stille cross-coupling of enantiomerically pure cycloalkenylstannane trans-2 and enol triflate 3. The resulting diene trans-4 engages in Diels-Alder cycloaddition reactions with a range of dienophiles to give, after removal of protecting groups, biologically interesting 6,7-disubstituted steroid analogues.