“…32 Steroidal enol lactone 46 was treated with 14 Unfortunately, this approach is not suitable for the introduction of multiple labeled carbon atoms into the A ring of steroids. In 1983, DeGraw and co-workers 33 successfully utilized the Fujimoto-Belleau reaction to introduce up to five 13 C atoms into the A ring of the steroid skeleton to prepare [1,2,3,4,10-13 C 5 ]-dexamethasone 49 and its [2,3,4-13 C 3 ]-49 isotopologue from enantiopure -lactone 51 (prepared starting from 16-methylcorticoid 52) with [1,2,3,4,5-13 C 5 ]-5-(diethylphosphono)pentan-2-one ethylene ketal 50 and its isotopologue [1,2,3-13 C 3 ]-50, respectively (see Scheme 8). In this approach, the crucial issue is the access to the desired C,D-steroid nucleus, some of which have been obtained through microbial degradation of sterols 34 or by multistep synthesis.…”