The (polyenoyl)tetramic
acid militarinone C (1) heads
a family of seven members. Before our work, the configuration of C-5
was unknown whereas the configurations of C-8′ and C-10′
were either (R,R) or (S,S). We synthesized the four stereoisomers of constitution 1, which conform with these insights. This included cross-coupling
both enantiomers of the western building block (8) with
both enantiomers of the eastern building block (9). The
specific rotations of the resulting 1 isomers suggested
that natural 1 is configured like the coupling partners
(S)-8 and (R,R)-9. This conclusion was corroborated by degrading natural 1 to alcohol 35 and by proving its configurational
identity with synthetic (R,R)-35.