Aluminum Chloride-Mediated Dieckmann Cyclization for the Synthesis of Cyclic 2-Alkyl-1,3-alkanediones: One-Step Synthesis of the Chiloglottones.

Cyclic 2-alkyl-1,3-alkanediones are ubiquitous structural motifs in many natural products of biological importance. Reported herein is an AlCl3·MeNO2-mediated Dieckmann cyclization reaction of general synthetic utility that enables direct access to complex 2-alkyl-1,3-dione building blocks from readily available dicarboxylic acid and acid chloride substrates. This new strategy enables direct synthetic access to the chiloglottone plant pheromones from commercial material in a single synthetic transformation.