A stereodivergent strategy to both product enantiomers from the same enantiomer of a stereoinducing catalyst: agelastatin A.

In this article, we report a full account of our recent development of pyrroles and N-alkoxyamides as new classes of nucleophiles for palladium-catalyzed AAA reactions, along with application of these methodologies in the total synthesis of agelastatin A, a marine natural product with exceptional anticancer activity and other biological properties. Our method allows for access to either regioisomer of the pyrrolopiperazinones (6 and 19) with high efficiency and enantioselectivity. Note that isomer 19 was obtained via a cascade reaction through a double allylic alkylation pathway. From regioisomer 6, the total synthesis of (+)-agelastatin A was completed in a very short fashion (four steps from 6), during the course of which we developed a new copper catalyst for aziridination and an In(OTf)(3)/DMSO system to oxidatively open an N-tosyl aziridine. Starting with the other pyrrolopiperazinone 19, a five-step sequence has been developed to furnish a formal total synthesis of (-)-agelastatin A. A unique feature of our syntheses is the use of two rather different strategies for the total syntheses of both enantiomers of agelastatin A using the same enantiomer of a chiral palladium catalyst.