Rüdiger Wittenberg, Christian Beier, Gerald Dräger, Gerhard Jas, Christian Jasper, Holger Monenschein and Andreas Kirschning.
Towards the total synthesis of tonantzitlolone––preparation of key fragments and the complete carbon backbone, Tetrahedron Letters, 2004, 45, 4457-4460The first synthetic advances towards the novel diterpenoid tonantzitlolone are described. The key steps in the synthesis involve a chromium(II) Reformatsky reaction, a diastereoselective C1 extension and an expeditious aldol coupling step of two advanced precursors.