Our laboratory has discovered a broad, new class of catalytic processes that promote C-C bond formation via direct alcohol C-H functionalization. In the prior funding period, this technology enabled total syntheses of 6-deoxyerythronolide B, bryostatin 7, trienomycins A and F, cyanolide A, roxaticin, and formal syntheses of rifamycin S and scytophycin C, availing the most concise routes to any member of these respective natural products families. In the proposed funding period, these routes will be adapted to prepare functional analogues of bryostatin and trienomycin. Our bryostatin analogues will be evaluated in an ongoing collaboration with Dr. Peter M. Blumberg, who is Chief, Molecular Mechanisms of Tumor Promotion Section in the Laboratory of Cancer Biology and Genetics at the NCI. The bryostatin analogues also will be evaluated in HIV viral reactivation assays in collaboration with colleagues at GlaxoSmithKline. Trienomycin analogues will be evaluated at the Texas Institute for Drug and Diagnostics Development (TI-3D). Having utilized alcohol C-C coupling to streamline the synthesis of several type I polyketides, we will now begin to evolve a suite of methods to assemble therapeutically relevant type II polyketide natural products, such as (+)-lactonamycin, which displays potent antibacterial activity against MRSA.
Polyketides are used extensively in human medicine1,2 and account for approximately 20% of the top-selling small molecule drugs.2,3 While the majority of polyketide drugs derive from soil bacteria, less than 5% of soil bacteria are amenable to culture.4 These data clearly suggest that as methods for the culture of soil bacteria improve, the use of polyketides in human medicine will increase, as will the need for concise manufacturing routes to these complex structures and their functional analogues. Here, we propose to continue our investigations into 'alcohol-unsaturate C-C coupling' by demonstrating how such processes enable new synthetic strategies that significantly simplify the construction of therapeutically relevant polyketide natural products. We are the only group exploring this emergent area of research.
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