Ingenol is a diterpenoid with unique architecture and has derivatives possessing important anticancer activity, including the recently Food and Drug Administration-approved Picato, a first-in-class drug for the treatment of the precancerous skin condition actinic keratosis. Currently, that compound is sourced inefficiently from Euphorbia peplus. Here, we detail an efficient, highly stereocontrolled synthesis of (+)-ingenol proceeding in only 14 steps from inexpensive (+)-3-carene and using a two-phase design. This synthesis will allow for the creation of fully synthetic analogs of bioactive ingenanes to address pharmacological limitations and provides a strategic blueprint for chemical production. These results validate two-phase terpene total synthesis as not only an academic curiosity but also a viable alternative to isolation or bioengineering for the efficient preparation of polyoxygenated terpenoids at the limits of chemical complexity.

Phorbol, the flagship member of the tigliane diterpene family, has been known for over 80 years and has attracted attention from scores of chemists and biologists due to its intriguing chemical structure and the medicinal potential of phorbol esters.1 Access to useful quantities of phorbol and related analogs has relied upon isolation from natural sources and semisynthesis. Despite relentless efforts spanning 40 years, chemical synthesis has been unable to compete with these strategies due to its sheer complexity and unusual oxidation pattern. In fact, purely synthetic enantiopure phorbol has remained elusive and efforts on the synthetic biology side have not led to even the simplest members of this terpene family. Recently the chemical syntheses of eudesmanes,2 germacrenes,3 taxanes,4,5 and ingenanes6-8 have all benefited from a strategy inspired by the logic of two-phase terpene biosynthesis where powerful C–C bond constructions and C–H bond oxidations go hand in hand. In this manuscript, we show how a two-phase terpene synthesis strategy can be enlisted to achieve the first enantiospecific total synthesis of (+)-phorbol in only 19 steps from the abundant monoterpene (+)-3-carene. The purpose of this route is not to displace isolation/semisynthesis as a means to generate the natural product per se, but rather to enable access to analogs containing unique oxidation patterns that are otherwise inaccessible.

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The natural product ouabagenin is a complex cardiotonic steroid with a highly oxygenated skeleton. This full account describes the development of a concise synthesis of ouabagenin, including the evolution of synthetic strategy to access hydroxylation at the C19 position of a steroid skeleton. In addition, approaches to install the requisite butenolide moiety at the C17 position are discussed. Lastly, methodology developed in this synthesis has been applied in the generation of novel analogues of corticosteroid drugs bearing a hydroxyl group at the C19 position.

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