Synthetic studies on tulearin macrolides

In this communication we present our initial synthetic studies to the natural product tulearin A. The total synthesis relies on the assembly of two chiral building blocks through regioselective nucleophilic epoxide opening and macrolactonization for the construction of 18-membered lactone skeleton. In this initial contribution we report the partial synthesis of the fragment C₁-C₇ containing three stereogenic centers where the key step is an asymmetric aldol condensation.