Addition, conjugate with nucleophiles

Conjugate addition of strong nucleophiles to the >C=N—C=C< moiety, followed by ring opening of the resulting saturated 5 4H)-oxazolone. Thus, 57 reacts with simple or peptidic amino acid esters [Eq. (31)]. Similarly, 62 gives 63 in methanolic 7i-propylamine, and... 

As noted previously, conjugate addition of a nucleophile to the j3 carbon of an cr,/3-unsaturated aldehyde or ketone leads to an enolate ion intermediate, which is protonated on the a carbon to give the saturated product (Figure 19.16). The net effect is addition of the nucleophile to the C=C bond, with the carbonyl group itself unchanged. In fact, of course, the carbonyl group is crucial to the success of the reaction. The C=C bond would not be activated for addition, and no reaction would occur, without the carbonyl group. 

Addition (Sections 14.2, 19.13) Addition of a reactant to the ends of a conjugated tt system. Conjugated dienes yield 1,4 adducts when treated with electrophiles such as MCI. Conjugated enones yield 1,4 adducts when treated with nucleophiles such as cyanide ion. 

In the same manner as described before, arenesulfonyl thiocyanates are able to show self-addition to conjugated systems yielding sulfones243,244. More important, however, is that reactions of selenosulfonates with unsaturated systems as well as with nucleophilic carbon have been proved. 

Michael addition is a 1,4-addition reaction of a nucleophile to an a, /1-unsaturated system in which the double bond is conjugated with a carbonyl group, enabling the formation of the corresponding enolate as an intermediate (equation 27). 

A quite different and complimentary approach is to assume that addition of a nucleophile to an acyl derivative (RCOX) would follow the linear free energy relationship for addition of the nucleophile to the corresponding ketone (RCOR, or aldehyde if R=H) if conjugation between X and the carbonyl could be turned off, while leaving its polar effects unchanged. This can be done if one knows or can estimate the barrier to rotation about the CO-X bond, because the transition state for this rotation is expected to be in a conformation with X rotated by 90° relative to RCO. In this conformation X is no longer conjugated, so one can treat it as a pure polar substituent. Various values determined by this approach are included in the tables in this chapter. 

The previous sections dealt with reactions in which the new carbon-carbon bond is formed by addition of the nucleophile to a carbonyl group. Another important method for alkylation of carbon nucleophiles involves addition to an electrophilic multiple bond. The electrophilic reaction partner is typically an a,(3-unsaturated ketone, aldehyde, or ester, but other electron-withdrawing substituents such as nitro, cyano, or sulfonyl also activate carbon-carbon double and triple bonds to nucleophilic attack. The reaction is called conjugate addition or the Michael reaction. 

In a, P-unsaturated carbonyl compounds and related electron-deficient alkenes and alkynes, there exist two electrophilic sites and both are prone to be attacked by nucleophiles. However, the conjugated site is considerably softer compared with the unconjugated site, based on the Frontier Molecular Orbital analysis.27 Consequently, softer nucleophiles predominantly react with a, (i-unsaturated carbonyl compounds through conjugate addition (or Michael addition). Water is a hard solvent. This property of water has two significant implications for conjugate addition reactions (1) Such reactions can tolerate water since the nucleophiles and the electrophiles are softer whereas water is hard and (2) water will not compete with nucleophiles significantly in such... 

Highly stabilized phosphorus ylides are prepared from acetylenic esters, a carbon-based nucleophile, and triphenylphosphine in aqueous media.40 In acetone-water (2 1) solvent, the reaction proceeds via the conjugate addition of triphenylphosphine to dialkyl acetylenedicarboxy-lates the resulting vinyl triphenylphosphonium salts undergo Michael addition reaction with a carbon-nucleophile to give the corresponding highly stabilized phosphorus ylides. 

In general these reactions are base-catalysed in that it is necessary to remove a proton from HCXYZ in order to generate the carbanion, eCXYZ, the effective nucleophile one or more of X, Y and Z are usually electron-withdrawing in order to stabilise it. The initial adduct (84) acquires a proton from the solvent (often H20 or ROH) to yield the simple addition product (85). Whether or not this undergoes subsequent dehydration (86) depends on the availability of an H atom, either on an a-carbon or where X, Y or Z = H, and also on whether the C=C so introduced would, or would not, be conjugated with other C=C or C=0 linkages in the product ... 

For N-methyl arylamines, electrophilic N-sulfonyloxy esters appear to be strong candidates for the ultimate carcinogenic metabolites. However, additional studies are required as these conclusions are circumstantially based on their comparative reactivity with nucleophiles and on the failure of other metabolic conjugation systems to esterify N-hydroxy-N-methyl arylamines (9,187). 

Li and co-workers also reported a highly efficient conjugate addition reaction with arylsilanes as nucleophilic reagents. The reaction of 2-cyclohexenone with 4 equiv. of either diphenyldichlorosilane or phenylmethyldichlorosilane in water generated the conjugate addition product in 97% and 95% yields, respectively (Scheme 55).143 An excess of sodium fluoride additive was important in this reaction. 

Heterocycles with conjugated jr-systems have a propensity to react by substitution, similarly to saturated hydrocarbons, rather than by addition, which is characteristic of most unsaturated hydrocarbons. This reflects the strong tendency to return to the initial electronic structure after a reaction. Electrophilic substitutions of heteroaromatic systems are the most common qualitative expression of their aromaticity. However, the presence of one or more electronegative heteroatoms disturbs the symmetry of aromatic rings pyridine-like heteroatoms (=N—, =N+R—, =0+—, and =S+—) decrease the availability of jr-electrons and the tendency toward electrophilic substitution, allowing for addition and/or nucleophilic substitution in yr-deficient heteroatoms , as classified by Albert.63 By contrast, pyrrole-like heteroatoms (—NR—, —O—, and — S—) in the jr-excessive heteroatoms induce the tendency toward electrophilic substitution (see Scheme 19). The quantitative expression of aromaticity in terms of chemical reactivity is difficult and is especially complicated by the interplay of thermodynamic and kinetic factors. Nevertheless, a number of chemical techniques have been applied which are discussed elsewhere.66... 

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