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Conclusions
In the course of the work towards the synthesis of (+)-vertine, a
number of different approaches were followed. Classical strat-
egies were tested without success and despite the lack of pre-
cedent for the formation of Z-alkene α to a carbonyl function,
RCM proved to be efficient leading to the first example of for-
mation of a Z-α,β-configurated unsaturated macrolactone. The
facile isomerization of the quinolizidin-2-one gave access to a
precursor of (+)-lythrine, whose synthesis was completed using
the same reaction sequence as for (+)-vertine.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Prof. I. A. Khan for a sample of (+)-vertine.
We thank the Swiss National Science Foundation for financial
support.
Notes and references
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6478 | Org. Biomol. Chem., 2012, 10, 6473–6479
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