A short and concise synthetic route to (-)-coniceine

(-)-Coniceine, the simplest framework of indolizidine alkaloids. has been successfully accessed using a route in which ruthenium-catalyzed ring-closing olefin metathesis (RCM) was the key reaction to establish the unsaturated bicyclic lactam system. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.