Synthetic studies on the fungal metabolite, wortmannin, were undertake
n in an effort to gain insight into the structure activity relationshi
ps of wortmannin analogs on phosphatidylinositol-3'-kinase (PI-3-kinas
e). Our work has focused on the chemistry of the previously unexplored
furan ring and has uncovered several interesting and novel chemical t
ransformations, which are described herein.