Baker's yeast mediated synthesis of natural products

Abstract

Baker's yeast converts α.β -unsaturated aldehydes (1) into a set of materials, including the methyl diols (3), formed by acyloin-type condensation of a pyruvate derived C unit, followed by reduction, the diol (12), formed by hydration-reduction and the saturated alcohol (14), all useful for the preparation of chiral natural products belonging to quite different structural classes. © 1990 IUPAC