Convergence of products from Povarov and von Miller reactions: approaches to helquinoline

Yttrium triflate or triflic acid catalysed Povarov reaction of methyl anthranilate with ethyl vinyl ether, both as aldehyde surrogate and as alkene, gave the desired 2-methyl-4-ethoxytetrahydroquinoline diastereoisomers as the major products along with four component coupling von Miller adducts. A proton NMR-study, using yttrium triflate as catalyst, revealed that the cis-diastereoisomers were the initial major products in both the Povarov and von Miller reactions but that these isomerised to the trans-diastereoisomers under the reaction conditions. Two distinct pathways for forming von Miller adducts were uncovered with the initial Povarov products being converted to von Miller adducts under the reaction conditions. Replacement of the 4-ethoxy with a 4-methoxy group under acidic conditions gave predominantly the trans-diastereoisomer, which was subsequently converted to a cis/trans mixture of the tetrahydroquinoline antibiotic helquinoline. It was also possible to convert the von Miller products to Povarov products under acidic conditions

Introducing the CTA concept

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a new observatory for very high-energy (VHE) gamma rays. CTA has ambitions science goals, for which it is necessary to achieve full-sky coverage, to improve the sensitivity by about an order of magnitude, to span about four decades of energy, from a few tens of GeV to above 100 TeV with enhanced angular and energy resolutions over existing VHE gamma-ray observatories. An international collaboration has formed with more than 1000 members from 27 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and North and South America. In 2010 the CTA Consortium completed a Design Study and started a three-year Preparatory Phase which leads to production readiness of CTA in 2014. In this paper we introduce the science goals and the concept of CTA, and provide an overview of the project. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.