Acylation pivaloylation

Acylation of ami noketone 8 with the acid chloride from p-toluic acid affords the corresponding ester (10) catalytic hydrogenation leads to the bronchodilator bitolerol (11). An analogous scheme starting from the N-methyl ketone (12) and pivaloyl chloride gives ami noalcohol (14). This compound is then resolved to isolate the levorotatory isomer. There is thus obtained the drug dipivefrin. 

In exceptional circumstances the acylium ion (or the polarised complex) can decompose to give an alkyl cation so that alkylation accompanies acylation. This occurs in the aluminium chloride-catalysed reaction of pivaloyl chloride which gives acylation with reactive aromatics such as anisole, but with less reactive aromatics such as benzene, the acylium ion has time to decompose, viz. 

If R is tertiary, RCOmay lose CO to give R, so that the alkylarene ArR is often a side product or even the main product. This kind of cleavage is much more likely with relatively unreactive substrates, where the acylium ion has time to break down. For example, pivaloyl chloride (McaCCOCl) gives the normal acyl product with anisole, but the alkyl product MesCPh with benzene. In the other mechanism an acyl cation is not involved, but the 1 1 complex attacks directly. 

Glycosyl fluorides have also been prepared by treatment of per-O-acyl or partially 0-acylated sugars with hydrogen fluoride [liquid HF (for example, see Refs. 38 and 39) or HF in acetic acid or dichloromethane], as exemplified by 2,3,4-tri-O-benzyl-a-D-xylopyranosyl (18), a-D-glucopyranosyl (19), tetra-O-pivaloyl-a-D-glucopyranosyl (20), and 2,3,5-tri-O-acetyl-D-xylofur-anosyl fluorides (21) (see Table 1). Frequently, HF treatment - leads to... 

Seebach and coworkers have developed the multiple coupling reagent, 2-nitro-2-propenyl 2,2-dimethylpropanoate (NPP). The reaction of nitromethane with formaldehyde gives 1,3-dihydroxy-2-nitropropane in 95% yield. Subsequent acylation with two equivalents of pivaloyl chloride and elimination of pivalic acid affords NPP. The reaction may be run on a 40- to 200-g... 

Sometimes acylium ions lose carbon monoxide to generate an ordinary carbonium ion. It will be recalled that free acyl radicals exhibit similar behavior at high temperatures. Whether or not the loss of carbon monoxide takes place seems to depend on the stability of the resulting carbonium ion and on the speed with which the acylium ion is removed by competing reactions. Thus no decarbonylation is observed in Friedel-Crafts reactions of benzoyl chloride, the phenyl cation being rather unstable. But attempts to make pivaloyl benzene by the Friedel-Crafts reaction produce tert-butyl benzene instead. With compound XLIV cyclization competes with decarbonylation, but this competition is not successful in the case of compound XLV in which the ring is deactivated.263... 

Bufotenine has been found to be behaviorally inactive, or only weakly active, in most animal studies, although at 15 mg/kg, it did produce the head-twitch resonse in mice (43). It was also behaviorally active in experiments in which the blood-brain barrier was bypassed (78). Acylation of the polar hydroxy group of bufotenine increases its lipid solubility (65,74) and apparently enhances its ability to cross the blood-brain barrier (64). For example, O-acetylbufotenine (5-acetoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine 54) disrupted conditioned avoidance behavior in rodents (65) and produced tremorigenic activity similar to that elicited by DMT (37) or 5-OMeDMT (59) when administered to mice (64). In this latter study, a comparison of brain levels of bufotenine after administration of O-acetylbufotenine with those of DMT and 5-OMeDMT revealed bufotenine to be the most active of the three agents, based on brain concentration. The pivaloyl ester of bufotenine also appears to possess behavioral activity, since stimulus generalization was observed when this agent was administered to animals trained to discriminate 5-OMeDMT from saline (74). 

Per-O-acylated glycosyl iodides are stable at room temperature and can be purified on a silica gel column and stored at 0 °C. Stachulski and coworkers [202] synthesized methyl 2,3,4-tri-O-pivaloyl-glucopyranuroate iodide, which is a stable solid at 20 °C and can be stored for months at room temperature or for more than a year at 0 °C. The X-ray crystal structure of this compound, the first one of this class, shows a typical chair structure. Importantly, such a disarmed and stable iodide can be coupled with primary and secondary steroidal alcohols using I2 as a promoter, as demonstrated by the synthesis of morphine-6-glucuronide, an analgesic [202], The glycosyl donor ability... 

The reaction of AK6-amino-4-quinazolinyl)aminomethylenemalonate (1460, R = NH2) and acyl chloride in methylene chloride in the presence of pyridine at 0°C afforded the 6-acylamido derivatives (1505) (81EUP30156). When the amine (1460, R = NH2) was repeatedly reacted with acetic anhydride in pyridine, the /V,/V-diacetylamino derivative (1506) was obtained. Treatment of the amine (1460, R = NH2) with pivaloyl chloride in methylene chloride in the presence of pyridine gave the pivaloylamido derivative (1505, R = Me3C—), while in DMF in the presence of pyridine a mixture of the pivaloylamido and 6-formamido derivatives (1505, R = Me3C— and H) was obtained. 

While attempting to prepare an T71-(vinylcarbene)iron complex121 by the alkylation or acylation of an a,/3-unsaturated acylferrate, Mitsudo and Wa-tanabe found122 that the major isolated product was in fact an -vinylketene complex (178), formed presumably by the carbonylation of an intermediate V-vinylcarbene, which may then undergo olefin coordination to the vacant metal site. All attempts to isolate such intermediates, or to observe them by 13C NMR spectroscopy, failed. Only in the reaction between potassium tetracarbonyl -cinnamoy ferrate (179.a) and pivaloyl chloride (180.b) was a side product (181) isolated in appreciable yield. In other reactions, only a trace (<1%) of such a compound was detected by spectroscopy. The bis(triphenylphosphine)iminium(l + ) (PPN) salts of 179.a and 179.b also reacted with 2 equiv of ethyl fluorosulfonate to give 178.g and 178.h in 21 and 37% yield, respectively. All products were somewhat unstable to silica gel, hence the low isolated yields in some cases. 

The hydrolysis of 4-pivaloyl-L-dopa is accompanied by rapid and reversible isomerization to 3-pivaloyl-L-dopa, a reaction of O-acyl migration that... 

Fig. 8.5. Mechanism postulated for competitive, specific base catalyzed hydrolysis and acyl migration of catechol monoesters, as seen with 4-pivaloyl-L-dopa (8.81) [114a]. Deprotonation (Reactions a and b) accelerates intramolecular nucleophilic attack (Reactions c and d) to form a tetrahedral transition state. The latter is postulated to be the intermediate common to hydrolysis (Reaction e) and acyl migration. 

The high reactivity of protonated heteroaromatic bases towards acyl radicals is shown by the success of the reaction with the pivaloyl radical, which usually undergoes rapid decarbonylation [Eq. (33)]. 

Protonated heteroaromatic bases are therefore more reactive than simple olefins toward acyl radicals. The radical addition of pivalaldehyde to olefins is, in fact, characterized by a radical chain, whose propagation is determined by decarbonylation of the pivaloyl radical and addition of <-butyl radical to the olefin. The synthetic interest is great in the case of substrates with only one reactive position, such as benzothiazole, ... 

Another representative highlight of the regioselective O-acylation work undertaken at QEC can be found in Richardson s selective O-pivaloylation of sucrose, which led to two papers with Les Hough and Manjit Chowdhary. One of these was on the regioselective O-pivaloylation itself, the other on the applications of the pivalate products in the preparation of various ring-modified sucrose derivatives. 

The photolysis of acyl azides has also been studied, and in some respects these appear to behave analogously. Pivaloyl azide, for example, adds to cyclohexene to give a 26% yield of an aziridine [Eq. (85)],321 and the assumption is that this addition again occurs via a nitrene. The photodecomposition of acetyl azide (295) in benzo-nitrile and phenylacetylene, on the other hand, affords322 2-methyl-5-phenyl-l,3,4-oxadiazole (296) and 2-methyl-5-phenyloxazole (297),... 

Cleavage of ethers. A few reports have mentioned that acyl iodides can cleave ethers in the absence of a Lewis acid. Since acyl iodides are not readily available, Oku et al. have used Nal and an acyl chloride as a possible equivalent. In any case, the system does cleave both cyclic and acyclic ethers selectively at the less substituted a-C—O bond. Although any acyl chloride can be used, use of pivaloyl chloride is particularly attractive because the resulting pivaloyl esters are readily hydrolyzed. Indeed this system is particularly useful for deprotection of methyl ethers. 

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