11 January 2006 .
Total synthesis of ecteinascidin 743.
Chen J, Chen X, Bois-Choussy M, Zhu J
Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles, CNRS, 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France.
A convergent total synthesis of ecteinascidin 743 is realized from five building blocks of almost equal size. It takes 23 steps from l-3-hydroxy-4-methoxy-5-methyl phenylalanol (5) with an overall yield of 3%