General approach for preparing epidithiodioxopiperazines from trioxopiperazine precursors: enantioselective total syntheses of (+)- and (-)-gliocladine C, (+)-leptosin D, (+)-T988C, (+)-bionectin A, and (+)-gliocladin A.

A common strategy for preparing tryptophan-derived epidithiodioxopiperazine (ETP) natural products containing a hydroxyl substituent adjacent to a quaternary carbon stereocenter is reported. This strategy is exemplified by enantioselective total syntheses of four heptacyclic ETP natural products--gliocladine C (6), leptosin D (7), T988C (8), and bionectin A (9)--starting with the di-(tert-butoxycarbonyl) derivative 17 of the trioxopiperazine natural product gliocladin C, which is readily available by enantioselective chemical synthesis. In addition, total syntheses of the enantiomer of gliocladine C (ent-6) and gliocladin A (11), the di(methylthio) congener of bionectin A, are reported. These syntheses illustrate a synthetic strategy wherein diversity in the dioxopiperazine unit of ETP natural products is introduced at a late stage in a synthetic sequence. In vitro cytotoxicity of compounds in this series against invasive human prostrate (DU145) and melanoma (A2058) cancer cell lines is described and compared to that of chaetocin A (4).