Total syntheses of cyclitol based natural products from myo-inositol: brahol and pinpollitol

Inositol and their derivatives are important class of biologically active natural products. Among the nine theoretically possible inositols, six are known to occur in nature. Interestingly one or more methyl ethers of these inositols have been isolated from plants and these methyl inositols are presumed to have important functions in plant biology. Brahol and pinpollitol are two naturally occurring methylated inositols reported to have allo-inositol and chiro-inositol configurations, respectively. Adopting our sulfonate inversion strategies for synthesizing protected chiro- and allo-inositols from cheaply available myo-inositol in combination with new methods we have achieved the total syntheses of these methylated inositols. The proposed structure of brahol has been synthesized in six steps from myo-inositol. We have not only disproved the proposed structure of brahol but also established its correct structure. Also, we have efficiently synthesized pinpollitol and its positional isomer from myo-inositol. These works involve several selective protection–deprotection strategies of inositol hydroxyl groups.