Gibberellin metabolites from ent-kaura-2,16-dien-19-ol and its succinate in Gibberella fujikuroi

Exposure of ent-kaura-2,16-dien-19-ol (1) or its succinate (2) to resuspended mycelia of G. fujikuroi has produced a complex mixture of acids which after methylation gave the esters of two C₁₉ (24) and (30) and five C₂₀ gibberellins (4, 11, 20, 32 and 33). The triester (32) and the lactone ester (24) have been prepared before from the esters of gibberellin A₁₃ (8) and gibberellin A₄ (26) respectively. The structures of the other metabolites were assigned on spectroscopic data and by chemical transformations. Thus the lactone diester (4) has been converted to the known keto triester (6). The epoxide (11) has been related to gibberellin A₁₄ (14) and the aldehyde (33) has been related to gibberellin A₁₃ trimethyl ester (8) by way of the triol (34). Selective de-epoxidation of the 16,17-epoxy function in diepoxides has provided a route from the dienes (20 and 24) to the epoxides (11 and 30) respectively, but not from the ester of gibberellin A₅ (23) to that of gibberellin A₆ (29). On the other hand the latter can be obtained by epoxidation of gibberellin A₅ methyl ester trifluoroacetate. Backfeeding experiments carried out with the epoxy diacid (12), the diene diacid (21) and the derived diol (39) indicate pathways connecting the various metabolites. The natural gibberellins A₅ and A₆ were shown to be formed in some of the backfeeding experiments.