Acylating agent isolable

Ca.rboxyhc Acids. Esters are the main products in the reaction of chloroformates with carboxyHc acids. The intermediate mixed carboxyhc—carbonic anhydrides are very active acylating agents (25—27) but these agents may be isolated in cold temperatures for producing useful products (28). 

By virtue of their fused /3-lactam-thiazolidine ring structure, the penicillins behave as acylating agents of a reactivity comparable to carboxylic acid anhydrides (see Section 5.11.2.1). This reactivity is responsible for many of the properties of the penicillins, e.g. difficult isolation due to hydrolytic instability (B-49MI51102), antibacterial activity due to irreversible transpeptidase inhibition (Section 5.11.5.1), and antigen formation via reaction with protein molecules. 

The acylation of enamino ketones can take place on oxygen or on carbon. While reaction at nitrogen is a possibility, the N-acylated products are themselves acylating agents, and further reaction normally takes place. The first reported acylation of enamino ketones (72) was that of 129, prepared by acylation of the enamine (113), which was shown to have undergone O acylation because on mild hydrolysis the enol ester (130) could be isolated. A similar reaction took place with other aliphatic acid chlorides (80) and with dibasic acid chlorides [e.g., with succinyl chloride to give 118 above]. 

In addition to acyl halides and acid anhydrides, there are a number of milder and more selective acylating agents that can be readily prepared from carboxylic acids. Imidazolides, the (V-acyl derivatives of imidazole, are examples.115 Imidazolides are isolable substances and can be prepared directly from the carboxylic acid by reaction with carbonyldiimidazole. 

Tartaric acid has an even more limited distribution as acylation agent of anthocyanins, identified in only four anthocyanins (82, 246, 383, and 401) isolated from flowers of Anemone... 

Acylation of Amines with Isolated Acylating Agents... 

The complex (162) can be used as an acylating agent for alcohols, phenols and amines in THF or benzene solvent (Scheme 42). Acetanilide can be isolated in 83% yield after 2 days at room temperature. In addition 8-acetoxyquinoline will react with Grignard reagents to give high yields (80%) of ketones. The reaction is believed to proceed via the intermediate magnesium(II) complex (163) (Scheme 43). 

Neri et al89 reported the desymmetrization of A-Boc-serinol 98 by the selective monoacetylation using PPL (porcine pancreas lipase) and vinyl acetate as the acylating agent in organic solvent. The mono acetylated product (R)-99 was obtained after 2 hours with 99% ee and isolated in 69% chemical yield. Traces of the diacetylated product 100 were observed. The cyclization of (R)-99 in basic medium afforded the racemic oxazolidinone 101. The latter was subjected to enzymatic hydrolysis in phosphate buffer affording (R)-... 

A modification of this system was also used in intramolecular MBH reactions (also called as aldol cycloisomerization) [71, 74]. In this reaction, optically active pipecolinic acid 61 was found to be a better co-catalyst than proline, and allowed ee-values of up to 80% to be obtained, without a peptide catalyst. The inter-molecular aldol dimerization, which is an important competing side-reaction of the basic amine-mediated intramolecular MBH reaction, was efficiently suppressed in a THF H20 (3 1) mixture at room temperature, allowing the formation of six-membered carbocycles (Scheme 5.14). The enantioselectivity of the reaction could be improved via a kinetic resolution quench by adding acetic anhydride as an acylating agent to the reaction mixture and a peptide-based asymmetric catalyst such as 64 that mediates a subsequent asymmetric acylation reaction. The non-acylated product 65 was recovered in 50% isolated yield with ee >98%. 

Nue reacts with the acylating agent according to the mechanism of Figure 6.2 The carbonyl compounds can be isolated when they are weaker electrophiles than the acylating agent. 

An interesting modification of the benzyl ester group is the introduction of chromo-phores that allow visual monitoring of the isolation and purification steps. Esters of 4-(dimethylamino)-4 -(hydroxymethyl)azobenzene additionally provide a basic substituent that enables attachment to ion-exchange resins and thus facilitates removal of excess starting materials, e.g. acylating agents, and possible byproducts.P ... 

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