New approaches to 25-hydroxy vitamin D building blocks
7 and 8 have been developed.
Tandem
acid-catalyzed conjugate addition of ketene acetal 2d or
2c and acceptors 3 and then 11 yielded
5b
(76% from 3) or 22 (64%), respectively, with
the proper relative configuration on C20, C17, and
C13 (steroid numbering, all compounds are racemic). The
trans-hydrindan ring junction in 16
and 27 has been secured by chirality transfer in
palladium-catalyzed hydrogenolysis of formates
15 and 26. Treatment of 16 with
N-bromoacetamide followed by NaOH yielded a mixture of
8β,9β-
and 8α,9α-epoxides 18 in a ratio of ca. 2:1, which was
tosylated and reduced with lithium aluminum
hydride without separation. The required diol 20 and
its isomer 21 were obtained. In a
complementary approach, 27 was oxidized into
8α,9α-epoxide 29 with a new reagent composed
of
m-CPBA, KF, and 2,6-di-tert-butyl-4-methylphenol.
Opening of the epoxide ring in 29 with
thiophenoxide anion followed by oxidation afforded dihydroxy sulfone
31. The latter was reduced
via the respective dimesylate, and then the protective benzyloxy group
was removed yielding 8.