Low-Valent Titanium-Mediated Enantioselective Synthesis of Quinazolinone Alkaloids Circumdatins F,H,and Analogs

We report the concise and protecting-group-free enantioselective total syntheses of circumdatins F and H.In view of the extreme importance of analogs of quinazolinone alkaloids in drug research and discovery,four analogs of bioactive quinazolinobenzodiazepine alkaloids,including demethoxycircumdatin H(12)and N-demethyl-benzomalvin A(13),have been synthesized.The method is based on the low-valent titanium-promoted intra-molecular reductive coupling of imides with o-nitrobenzimides,which yielded quinazolino[3,2-a][1,4]benzodi-azepines under mild conditions.In addition,heptacyclic dehydraasperlicin E(16)has been synthesized from asper-licin C by a NCS-mediated dehydra-cyclization reaction.