Ruthenium-catalyzed intramolecular metathesis of dienes and its application in the synthesis of bridged and spiro azabicycles

The review presents a historical excursion into catalytic alkene metathesis, covering the problems of history of the discovery of this process, as well as investigations on the properties, structure and reactivity of the most popular ruthenium catalysts for metathesis, mechanism of their action and decomposition. The main part covers studies devoted to the syntheses of bridged azabicyclic and 1-azaspirocyclic compounds comprising the intramolecular metathesis of dienes as the key step. The formation of a bicyclic skeleton of a series of natural bridged (cocaine, ferruginine, calystegines, and anatoxin-a) and spiro (pinnaic acids, halichlorine, hystrionicotoxin, and cephalotaxine) azabicycles, as well as their analogues and compounds with larger rings is demonstrated. The methods for the synthesis of diene precursors and the conditions for final assembling of the bicyclic compounds are considered in detail. The generalization of the literature data allows one to efficiently carry out the mentioned process taking into account the most important features. The bibliography includes 129 references.