Synthesis and Characterization of all‐E‐(4,4′‐13C2)‐Astaxanthin Strategies for Labelling the C15‐End Groups of Carotenoids

The all-E isomer of (4,4′-13C2)astaxanthin (1a) has been prepared by total synthesis starting from commercially available 99% 13C enriched acetonitrile. The labelled astaxanthin was obtained in high purity and with high isotope incorporation. For this synthesis, the C15 + C10 + C15 strategy was used. The central C10-synthon, 2,7-dimethylocta-2,4,6-triene-1,8-dial (3), was coupled with 13C-enriched C15-phosphonium salt 2a. The new synthetic scheme for the preparation of the C15-phosphonium salt is discussed in this paper; the same scheme can be used to label all positions and combinations of positions of the C15-phosphonium salt.