Total synthesis of (–)-anaferine: A further ramification in a diversity-oriented approach

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).The piperidine ring is a widespread motif in several natural bioactive alkaloids of both vegetal and marine origin. In the last years, a diversity-oriented synthetic (DOS) approach, aimed at the generation of a library of piperidine-based derivatives, was developed in our research group, employing commercially available 2-piperidine ethanol as a versatile precursor. Here, we report the exploration of another ramification of our DOS approach, that led us to the stereoselective total synthesis of (–)-anaferine, a bis-piperidine alkaloid present in Withania somnifera extract. This natural product was obtained in 9% overall yield over 13 steps, starting from a key homoallylic alcohol previously synthesised in our laboratory. Therefore, the collection of piperidine-derivatives accessible from 2-piperidine ethanol was enriched with a new, diverse scaffold.