Allylic oxidations of olefins to enones allow the efficient synthesis of value-added products from simple olefinic precursors like terpenes or terpenoids. Biocatalytic variants have a large potential for industrial applications, particularly in the pharmaceutical and food industry. Herein we report efficient biocatalytic allylic oxidations of spirocyclic terpenoids by a lyophilisate of the edible fungus Pleurotus sapidus. This ''mushroom catalysis'' is operationally simple and allows the conversion of various unsaturated spirocyclic terpenoids. A number of new spirocyclic enones have thus been obtained with good regio-and chemoselectivity and chiral separation protocols for enantiomeric mixtures have been developed. The oxidations follow a radical mechanism and the regioselectivity of the reaction is mainly determined by bond-dissociation energies of the available allylic CH-bonds and steric accessibility of the oxidation site.2233

The need for increasing productivity in medicinal chemistry and associated improvements in automated synthesis technologies for compound library production during the past few years have resulted in a major challenge for compound purification technology and its organization. To meet this challenge, we have recently set up three full-service chromatography units with the aid of in-house engineers, different HPLC suppliers, and several companies specializing in custom laboratory automation technologies. Our goal was to combine high-throughput purification with the high attention to detail which would be afforded by a dedicated purification service. The resulting final purification laboratory can purify up to 1000 compounds/week in amounts ranging from 5 to 300 mg, whereas the two service intermediate purification units take 100 samples per week from 0.3 to 100 g. The technologies consist of normal-phase and reversed-phase chromatography, robotic fraction pooling and reformatting, a bottling system, an automated external solvent supply and removal system, and a customized, high-capacity freeze-dryer. All work processes are linked by an electronic sample registration and tracking system.

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Terpenoid spiroethers are abundant natural flavors with significant impact, particularly in the food industry. We present in this article the synthesis of new derivatives of the well-known flavors theaspirane and vitispirane using a variant of the Prins cyclization starting from α,β-unsaturated or heterocyclic ketones. When aromatic ketones were used as the starting materials for Lewis acid-mediated cyclizations, an alternative pathway involving a domino sequence of Prins cyclization, followed by an intramolecular Friedel-Crafts alkylation, gave benzoannelated oxabicyclo[3.3.1]nonane derivatives. Different reaction pathways may be triggered by the reaction temperature to give with good selectivity either tetrahydropyran derivatives as conventional Prins products or oxabicyclo[3.3.1]nonane derivatives.