Enantioselective construction of small molecules displaying a configurationally stable helical shape built on a fused-tetracyclic core is a daunting synthetic challenge even more pronounced when five-membered rings are incorporated in the structure. The resulting higher configurational lability strongly hampers their access, and therefore the development of new efficient methodologies is timely and highly desirable. In this context, we describe a padlocking approach via the enantioselective organocatalytic domino furannulation of appropriately designed achiral fused-tricyclic precursors resulting in the synthesis of configurationally locked helically chiral tetracyclic scaffolds featuring one or two five-membered rings with the simultaneous control of central and helical chiralities.
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