Novel domino oxidative coupling: C-C bond formation sequence to highly functionalized dibenzo[a,c]cycloheptenes.

A domino sequence involving various MoCl(5)-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.