Total syntheses of natural tubelactomicins B, D, and E: establishment of their stereochemistries.

Total syntheses of the antimicrobial tricyclic 16-membered macrolides, (+)-tubelactomicin B, (+)-tubelactomicin D, and (+)-tubelactomicin E, have been accomplished for the first time with common synthetic approaches. These total syntheses established the relative and absolute configurations of the three tubelactomicins, for which planar structures had solely been reported. The total synthesis of (+)-tubelactomicin D included a newly developed stereoselective intramolecular Diels-Alder reaction for constructing the highly functionalized octahydronaphthalene substructures.