Novel Domino Oxidative Coupling: C-C Bond Formation Sequence to Highly Functionalized Dibenzo-[a,c]cycloheptenes

A domino sequence involving various MoCl5-mediated oxidations followed by trapping and supposed [3,3]-sigmatropic rearrangement provides a fast access to the full carbon skeleton of metasequirin-B. A variety of different moieties R-1 and R-2 are tolerated.