Development of a concise and general enantioselective approach to 2,5-disubstituted-3-hydroxytetrahydrofurans.

Concise syntheses of 2,5-disubstituted-3-hydroxytetrahydrofurans have been developed that provide access to each configurational isomer of this scaffold from a single aldol adduct. Application of these methods to the rapid preparation of (6S,7S,9S,10S)- and (6S,7S,9R,10R)-6,9-epoxynonadec-18-ene-7,10-diol, two structurally related marine epoxylipids, is reported.