A Formal Total Synthesis of Platencin

The readily available and enantiomerically pure trienes 12 undergo a thermally induced intramolecular Diels-Alder reaction to give the corresponding mixture of compounds 13 and 14. This mixture has been elaborated to an advanced intermediate associated with Nicolaou's recently reported total synthesis of the natural enantiomeric form of the antibiotic platencin (2).