Studies dealing with the diastereoselective installation of nine stereogenic centers of the C-12-C-25 subunit of bafilomycin A 1 1 are described. A spiroketal precursor has been chosen as a rigid scaffold owing to the central spiro center, the configuration of which is dictated by predictable anomeric effects. A strategy using a previously described anti-Danishefsky condensation of chiral anti-aldehyde 6(OTES) with pentan-2,4-dione bis(trimethylsilyl)ether 7 (M = TMS), followed by an oxalate condensation to the other end of the pentanedione unit, afforded the required spiroketalic enone precursor 24. After generating the C-18 and C-17 centers through an enolate methylation reaction-Luche reduction sequence followed by a Mitsunobu inversion to give 27, the remaining C-16 methyl group was achieved via a hydroxy-directed cyclopropanation-reductive opening sequence to give the fully functionalized C-15-C-25 spiroketal 35. Further elongation at the C-14 center involved a Felkin-Ahn stereocontrolled addition of trimethylsilylacetylene followed by a one-pot O-methylation-desilylation, affording the acetylenic subunit 44, ready to be transformed into the vinylstannne required for the subsequent Stille coupling reaction with a C-1-C-11 subunit of bafilomycin A 1 . A 15-epi spiroketal intermediate has also been synthesized, as well as various 18-desmethyl analogues for comparative studies.Bafilomycin A 1 (1) belongs to a group of antibiotics called 'plecomacrolides' that all have 16 or 18 carbons. 2 This 16-membered unsaturated macrolide, as well as its 18-membered congener concanamycin A, 3 are potent selective inhibitors of vacuolar-type H + -ATPases (V-ATPases) 4 and are therefore endowed with broad potential biological activity, though they are too toxic for therapeutic use. However, recent structure-activity studies on bafilomycins, as well as recent advances in the characterization of particular V-ATPase enzyme isoforms, may provide new avenues for the development of less toxic and more specific analogues to fight specific diseases where V-ATPases dysfunction may be involved, such as osteoporosis. 5 The unique biological activity of bafilomycin A 1 as well as its challenging complex structure, which includes the unique folded tetrahydropyran hemiketalic side chain, are continuously stimulating the interest of the chemistry community. 6Our current program toward the total synthesis of 1 involves the late coupling of two major fragments of similar complexity using a Pd-catalyzed reaction to form the C-11-C-12 bond, followed by a macrolactonization as the final steps. We have recently published a synthesis of the C-1-C-11 subunit of bafilomycin A 1 using both non-Wittig and desymmetrization methodologies. 7 For the C-12-C-25 subunit, as summarized in Scheme 1, we envision two synthons: linear 2a, on which hemiketalization would be performed after the macrocyclization, and spiroketal 2b, which would undergo concomitant spiroketal 'semi-opening' to liberate the hydroxy at C-15 and lactonization.These two compounds would b...