Alcohols, epoxy reduction

Lack of specificity of a different eort exhibited by 4fij56- and 50,60-epoxy steroids (Eqe. 363 and 364). which yield mixtnreg of isomeric alcohols on reduction over platinum in acetic acid. . ... 

Conversion of a-haloketones to olefins using hydrazine (via enedlitnides C-C-N NH). Also reduction of o,3-epoxy ketones to allyl alcohols. 

Borohydrides reduce a-substituted ketones to the corresponding a-substituted alcohols, and such products can be further reduced to olefins (see section VIII). Other reagents serve, through participation of the carbonyl group, to remove the substituent while leaving the ketone intact. The zinc or chromous ion reduction of a-halo ketones is an example of this second type, which is not normally useful for double bond introduction. However, when the derivative being reduced is an a,jS-epoxy ketone, the primary product is a -hydroxy ketone which readily dehydrates to the a,jS-unsaturated ketone. Since... 

Wohf-Kishner reductions of a,jS-epoxy ketones give allylic alcohols, thus providing a means of reversing the arrangement in a,jS-unsaturated ketones or allylic alcohols. The reaction as first described by Wharton proceeds very readily (at room temperature in some instances) and the addition of strong base is unnecessary for example, the reduction of the epoxy ketone 143. 

Sharpless and Masumune have applied the AE reaction on chiral allylic alcohols to prepare all 8 of the L-hexoses. ° AE reaction on allylic alcohol 52 provides the epoxy alcohol 53 in 92% yield and in >95% ee. Base catalyze Payne rearrangement followed by ring opening with phenyl thiolate provides diol 54. Protection of the diol is followed by oxidation of the sulfide to the sulfoxide via m-CPBA, Pummerer rearrangement to give the gm-acetoxy sulfide intermediate and finally reduction using Dibal to yield the desired aldehyde 56. Homer-Emmons olefination followed by reduction sets up the second substrate for the AE reaction. The AE reaction on optically active 57 is reagent... 

The synthesis of the trisubstituted cyclohexane sector 160 commences with the preparation of optically active (/ )-2-cyclohexen-l-ol (199) (see Scheme 49). To accomplish this objective, the decision was made to utilize the powerful catalytic asymmetric reduction process developed by Corey and his colleagues at Harvard.83 Treatment of 2-bromocyclohexenone (196) with BH3 SMe2 in the presence of 5 mol % of oxazaborolidine 197 provides enantiomeri-cally enriched allylic alcohol 198 (99% yield, 96% ee). Reductive cleavage of the C-Br bond in 198 with lithium metal in terf-butyl alcohol and THF then provides optically active (/ )-2-cyclo-hexen-l-ol (199). When the latter substance is treated with wCPBA, a hydroxyl-directed Henbest epoxidation84 takes place to give an epoxy alcohol which can subsequently be protected in the form of a benzyl ether (see 175) under standard conditions. 

A reiterative application of a two-carbon elongation reaction of a chiral carbonyl compound (Homer-Emmonds reaction), reduction (DIBAL) of the obtained trans unsaturated ester, asymmetric epoxidation (SAE or MCPBA) of the resulting allylic alcohol, and then C-2 regioselective addition of a cuprate (Me2CuLi) to the corresponding chiral epoxy alcohol has been utilized for the construction of the polypropionate-derived chain ]R-CH(Me)CH(OH)CH(Me)-R ], present as a partial structure in important natural products such as polyether, ansamycin, or macro-lide antibiotics [52]. A seminal application of this procedure is offered by Kishi s synthesis of the C19-C26 polyketide-type aliphatic segment of rifamycin S, starting from aldehyde 105 (Scheme 8.29) [53]. 

The procedure is outlined in Scheme 8.33, starting from the generic allylic alcohol 125. SAE on 125 would provide epoxide 126, which could easily be transformed into the unsaturated epoxy ester 127 by oxidation/Horner-Emmonds olefmation (two-carbon extension). This operation makes the oxirane carbon adjacent to the double bond more susceptible to nucleophilic attack by a hydride, so reductive opening (DIBAL) of 127 provides, with concomitant ester reduction, diol 128. Pro-... 

Silanes And Base. In the presence of bases, certain silanes can selectively reduce carbonyls. Epoxy-ketones are reduced to epoxy-alcohols, for example with (MeO)3SiH and LiOMe. ° Controlling temperature and solvent leads to different ratios of syn- and anti- products.Silanes reduce ketones in the presence of BF3-OEt2 ° and transition metal compounds catalyze this reduction. ... 

The overall transformation of alkenes to alcohols that is accomplished by epoxi-dation and reduction corresponds to alkene hydration. Assuming a nucleophilic ring opening by hydride addition at the less-substituted carbon, the reaction corresponds to the Markovnikov orientation. This reaction sequence is therefore an alternative to the hydration methods discussed in Chapter 4 for converting alkenes to alcohols. 

The reductive demercuration was marred by the loss of about half of the peroxide due to competing deoxymercuration which afforded 4-cycloocten-l-ol. An additional complication was the formation of a small amount of trans-1,2-epoxy-cw-cyclooct-5-ene. The bicyclic peroxide 50 was readily separated from the unsaturated alcohol by silica chromatography, but complete removal of the epoxide was more difficult. Preservation of the peroxide linkage was markedly higher in the bromodemercuration. The diastereoisomeric dibromoperoxides 51 were separated by HPLC, although only one isomer was fully characterised. 

Using different reagents or under various conditions, 2,3-epoxy alcohols can undergo ring-opening reactions with metallic hydrides, giving 1,3-diols or 1,2-diols. As shown in Scheme 4-16, reduction of 3-substituted 2,3-epoxy alcohols with Red-Al leads to the exclusive formation of 1,3-diols, and this can be applied in the preparation of 1,3-diol compounds.31... 

This reduction of epoxy ketones has been used to prepare a number of santan-olides from the diepoxide (1) of a-santonin.2 Thus reduction of 1 is accompanied by dehydration of the intermediate tertiary alcohol to give dehydroisoerivanin (2) in 80% yield. 

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