Construction of the Complete Aromatic Core of Diazonamide A by a Novel Hetero Pinacol Macrocyclization Cascade Reaction

One of the most enticing natural products isolated in recent years and a serious challenge to synthetic chemists is represented by the potent anticancer agent diazonamide A (1). By utilizing a highly convergent approach, the ABCDEF macrocycle 2 was constructed in only 16 linear steps based on a key intermolecular Suzuki coupling reaction to generate the C16−C18 biaryl linkage and a remarkable SmI2-induced hetero pinacol coupling cascade sequence.