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,25-Dihydroxyvitamin D
3 (calcitriol,
1) is a
bioregulator important for the treatment of various humanmeta
bolic diseases
and biomedical research. Herein, we report an efficient diastereoselective approachto the key
trans-hydrindane
building
block for calcitriol synthesis (
2a) starting from the readily accessi
bleoptically active tetrahydroindenedione derivative (Hajos dione,
3). It was found that epoxide ring openingin a related hydroxy epoxide (
7) with sodium cyano
borohydride-BF
3 × Et
2O occurs
by hydride anionaddition at the ring juncture position to produce a vicinal diol with the
trans-hydrindane ring system(
6a). Four methods for selective deoxygenation of the sterically less shielded hydroxy group in diol
6awere examined with an approach
based on a cyclic sulfate of the diol as the most efficient
and operationallyconvenient method.