Total synthesis of cordycepin

Abstract

Cordycepin has a large spectrum of biological and pharmaceutical activities, which is beneficial to human health in a number of aspects. In present paper, two total synthetic routes are developed to provide high quality product of cordycepin using D-glucose or D-xylose as the starting materials. The key step of the total synthesis is deoxygenation of 3-OH using Barton-McCombie reaction to afford 3-deoxyribose. Cordycepin is obtained in 8 steps and 7 steps with 37% and 40% overall yield, respectively. Its purity is above 98.5%. © 2013 Chinese Chemical Society & SIOC, CAS.