An efficient procedure for the synthesis of 2-N-Boc-amino-3,5-diols

We wish to describe here the diastereoselective reaction between chiral N-Boc-α-amino aldehydes with both achiral allyltrichlorostannanes leading to 1,2-syn-N-Boc-α-amino alcohols, which are easily converted to the corresponding 4-N-Boc-amino-3-hydroxy ketones after treatment with catalytic amounts of OsO4 in the presence of NaIO4. After reduction of the carbonyl function, these 4-N-Boc-amino-3-hydroxy ketones were converted to 1-deoxy-5-hydroxy sphingosine analogues.