Epoxide-opening cascades triggered by a Nicholas reaction: total synthesis of teurilene.

The way in which nature approaches the synthesis of complex molecules is a great source of inspiration to organic chemists for planning a synthetic route to a natural product. In this context, cascade cyclizations are considered a valuable tool for obtaining molecular complexity in a straightforward manner. Focusing on polycyclic ethers, it is well accepted by the scientific community that these types of compounds originate from a cascade cyclization of a polyepoxide backbone, thus leading to structures such as the ones depicted in Figure 1. Therefore, epoxide-opening cascades have been