Chemistry and

The design and development of novel chenodeoxychoic acid (CDCA) derivatives and its molecular architecture was accomplished. A novel CDCA derivative with an ambient CO2 insertion to 7α-side chain has been serendipitously discovered. It is the first time that CO2 has been directly introduced to the steroid molecules by organic synthetic method. It also provides a potential methodology to synthesize 14 C labeled bile acid derivatives to explore the transport mechanism of hASBT. Secondly, a series of CDCA based macrocycles with inner cavities have been synthesized and characterized. Particularly, the single crystal X-ray analysis has revealed an unequivocal structure of 4-pentenoate functionalized cyclodimer (K). The first CDCA based cage-type molecular architecture has been achieved by Grubb’s reaction. Especially we have successfully synthesized and separated the first cis/trans isomers of the bridged CDCA cyclodimer. The most exciting thing is we have discovered the structure of cis bridged cyclodimer b