Submitted on April 6, 2004
Accepted on June 2, 2004
Total Synthesis of Norzoanthamine
Masaaki Miyashita 1*,
Minoru Sasaki 1,
Izumi Hattori 1,
Mio Sakai 1,
Keiji Tanino 1
1 Division of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0810, Japan.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Masaaki Miyashita , E-mail: miyasita{at}sci.hokudai.ac.jp
Norzoanthamine, alkaloid isolated from Zoanthus sp., can suppress the loss of bone weight and strength in ovariectomized mice. Norzoanthamine derivatives can also strongly inhibit the growth of P-388 murine leukemia cell lines and human platelet aggregation. However, norzoanthamine's densely functionalized complex stereostructure and scarce availability from natural sources have proved a synthetic challenge. We report the stereoselective total synthesis of norzoanthamine in 39 steps with an overall yield of 3.5%.