Herein, we described the asymmetric total synthesis of (-)-brazilane, an optically active natural product. The key steps of this synthetic approach are a lipase-catalyzed desymmetrisation reaction of a prochiral diol using vinyl acetate to prepare a chiral primary alcohol and a trifluoroacetic acid-catalyzed one pot intramolecular tandem Prins/Friedel-Crafts reaction used to construct the cis-fused chromane and indane framework.[Formula: see text].
Keywords: (–)-brazilane; Total synthesis; lipase-catalyzed desymmetrisation; natural product; tandem Prins/Friedel-Crafts reaction.