From nature, through chemical synthesis, toward use in agriculture: Oryzoxymycin case study

The Diels-Alder adducts of ethyl ( )-3-nitroacrylate and furan provided a common and versatile template for the stereocontrolled synthesis of an isomer of the natural product oryzoxymycin and polyhydroxylated cyclohexyl β-amino acid derivatives. The strategy for the synthesis of the polyhydroxylated cyclic β-amino acid derivatives involved base-induced fragmentation of the oxanorbornene skeleton and face selective oxidation reactions. A Pd-catalyzed transfer hydrogenation reaction in the presence of organic acids is also described. This reaction is amenable to being enantioselective through use of optical pure chiral organic acids.