Spiroviolene is a spirocyclic triquinane diterpene produced by Streptomyces violens. Recently, a biosynthetic pathway that includes secondary carbocation intermediates and a complicated concerted skeletal rearrangement was proposed for spiroviolene, based upon careful labeling experiments. On the basis of density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we propose a revised pathway for spiroviolene biosynthesis, involving a multistep carbocation cascade that bypasses the formation of unstable secondary carbocations by breaking the adjacent C-C bond to form a more stable tertiary carbocation (IM3) and by Wagner-Meerwein 1,2-methyl rearrangement (IM7).
Keywords: biosynthesis; carbocation; density functional theory; terpene.