Dihydroxylation Studies of Isoquinolinones: Synthesis of the EF-Ring of Lysolipin I

Inspired by the potent polycyclic xanthone antibiotic Lysolipin I, a general study on asymmetric dihydroxylation reactions of variously substituted isoquinolinones was performed. Different isoquinolinones were efficiently prepared, either by a Pomeranz-Fritsch type condensation or a Curtius rearrangement. Under a broad variety of conventional oxygenation procedures they proved very unreactive. However, either by suitable substitution of the appending aromatic ring or more forcing conditions a dihydroxylation could finally be performed, which allowed for synthesis of the EF-ring of Lysolipin I.