A Synthesis of 2-(6′-Carboxy-2′-cis-Hexenyl)-4-Hydroxycyclopent-2-EN-1-ONE, a Prostagiandin Intermediate¹

Abstract

Several recent publications² report the synthesis of prostaglandin E₁ (PGE₁, 2) and some of its derivatives by conjugate addition reactions to ether-ester forms of hydroxycyclopentenone acid 1.³ The simplicity of this approach makes its application to the preparation of prostaglandins of the PG₂- and PG₃ - series (cis-Δ⁵)⁴ an attractive alternative to the existing elegant methods.⁵ We now wish to report a five-step synthesis of the requisite hydroxycyclopentenone precursor 3 from the readily available⁶ lactone 4.