Halo aldehydes or their equivalents have been widely employed in heterocyclic synthesis. Such aldehydes are useful for ring-forming reactions in that they represent units with two adjacent electrophilic sites. However, the simplest representatives, bromo-or chloroacetaldehyde, have been little used because the anhydrous aldehyde is difficult to prepare. J. Org. Chem. 1983,48, 2111-2112 2111 the solid residue, dissolved in MeOH, was filtered and dried in vacuo, followed by HPLC separation (Altex columns with MeOH/H20 (91) as mobile phase), to yield 1.5 mg of 2b and 32 mg of starting compound lb. The high-resolution mass and 'H NMR spectra of 2b were identical in all respects with those of natural 2b.
Disciplines3@,11-Dihydroxy-9,11-secogorgost-5-en-9-one (la):' absorption spectrum tm 51; CD -3350, -4800.Isomerization of 3/3,1l-Dihydroxy-9,ll-secogorgost-5-en-9-one (la) to 8a-H Isomer 2 a A 50-mg eample of la was treated in the same way as described above for lb. The final HPlC separation yielded 2 mg of 2a (HPLC rrt 0.14 with cholesterol = 1) and 35 mg of la. Absorption spectrum of 2a: c2a 147; CD Acetylation of l b and 3b to 3@,11-Diacetoxy-24-methylene-9,ll-secocholest-5-en-9-one (4b). Both lb and 3b were acetylated under standard conditions (AczO/py, room temperature, 2 h) to yield the same diacetate 4b, which was purified by HPLC on Altex columns with MeOH/H20 (