The
tricyclic scaffold of the bacterial polyketide enterocin was
recently shown to undergo stereodiversification through a series of
abiotic isomerizations, described metaphorically as a “ballet
of isomers”. However, some confusion remains regarding the
exact nature of these interconversions, with two independent reports
proposing different reaction mechanisms and intermediates. Herein,
we have rechoreographed enterocin’s ballet of isomers to provide
a unified mechanism and revised the structures reported for enterocins
C, D, and F.