Enantioselective synthesis of cis-hydrobenzofurans bearing all-carbon quaternary stereocenters and application to total synthesis of (-)-morphine

(-)-Morphine, which is selected as an essential medicine by World Health Organization, is widely applied in the treatment of the pain-related diseases. Due to its synthetically challenging molecular architecture and important clinical role, extensive synthetic studies of morphine-type alkaloids have been conducted. However, catalytic asymmetric total synthesis of (-)-morphine remains a long-standing challenge. Here, we disclose an efficient enantioselective total synthesis of (-)-morphine in a longest linear sequence of 16 steps. The key transformation features a highly enantioselective Robinson annulation enabled by our spiro-pyrrolidine catalyst to rapidly construct the densely functionalized cis-hydrodibenzofuran framework containing vicinal stereocenters with an all-carbon quaternary center. This asymmetric approach provides an alternative strategy for the synthesis of (-)-morphine and its analogues.