Recent progress toward synthesis of chlorosulfolipids: total synthesis and methodology

Chlorosulfolipids (CSLs) are an intriguing family of natural products featuring highly chlorinated linear hydrocarbon skeletons. Although CSLs were first isolated in 1962, chemical synthesis of CSLs was hampered because relevant methods for stereoselective construction of the polychlorinated motifs of CSLs were scarce. Since Carreira’s first total synthesis of the CSL mytilipin A in 2009, several groups, including our own, have reported total syntheses of CSLs. As a result of these total syntheses, important progress has been made in the development of reliable synthetic methods for stereoselective polychlorination. In this digest, we summarize the total syntheses of CSLs by focusing on synthetic methods for stereoselective polychlorination of the organic frameworks of CSLs.