Aldehydes, asymmetric catalysis

Chiral oxazolines developed by Albert I. Meyers and coworkers have been employed as activating groups and/or chiral auxiliaries in nucleophilic addition and substitution reactions that lead to the asymmetric construction of carbon-carbon bonds. For example, metalation of chiral oxazoline 1 followed by alkylation and hydrolysis affords enantioenriched carboxylic acid 2. Enantioenriched dihydronaphthalenes are produced via addition of alkyllithium reagents to 1-naphthyloxazoline 3 followed by alkylation of the resulting anion with an alkyl halide to give 4, which is subjected to reductive cleavage of the oxazoline moiety to yield aldehyde 5. Chiral oxazolines have also found numerous applications as ligands in asymmetric catalysis these applications have been recently reviewed, and are not discussed in this chapter. ... 

The complex Pd-(-)-sparteine was also used as catalyst in an important reaction. Two groups have simultaneously and independently reported a closely related aerobic oxidative kinetic resolution of secondary alcohols. The oxidation of secondary alcohols is one of the most common and well-studied reactions in chemistry. Although excellent catalytic enantioselective methods exist for a variety of oxidation processes, such as epoxidation, dihydroxy-lation, and aziridination, there are relatively few catalytic enantioselective examples of alcohol oxidation. The two research teams were interested in the metal-catalyzed aerobic oxidation of alcohols to aldehydes and ketones and became involved in extending the scopes of these oxidations to asymmetric catalysis. 

For a review of allyl additions to aldehydes, see A. Yanagi-sawa, in Comprehensive Asymmetric Catalysis (Eds. E. N. Jacobsen, A. Pfaltz, H. Yamamoto), Springer, Berlin, 1999 pp. 965-982. 

Abstract In the first part of this mini review a variety of efficient asymmetric catalysis using heterobime-tallic complexes is discussed. Since these complexes function at the same time as both a Lewis acid and a Bronsted base, similar to enzymes, they make possible many catalytic asymmetric reactions such as nitroal-dol, aldol, Michael, Michael-aldol, hydrophosphonyla-tion, hydrophosphination, protonation, epoxide opening, Diels-Alder and epoxi-dation reaction of a, 3-unsaturated ketones. In the second part catalytic asymmetric reactions such as cya-nosilylations of aldehydes... 

Y. Hamashima, D. Sawada, M. Kanai, M Shibasaki A New Bifunctional Asymmetric Catalysis An Effident Catalytic Asymmetric Cyanosilylation of Aldehydes, J. Am Chem Soc 1999,121, 2641-2642. 

For these and similar reactions recently a variety of Lewis acidic aluminium, rare earth metals, and titanium alkoxides have been applied. Alkoxides have the additional advantage that they can be made as enantiomers using asymmetric alcohols which opens the possibility of asymmetric catalysis. Examples of asymmetric alcohols are bis-naphtols, menthol, tartaric acid derivatives [28], Other reactions comprise activation of aldehydes towards a large number of nucleophiles, addition of nucleophiles to enones, ketones, etc. 

Simultaneous publication of the iminium ion catalysed hydrophosphination of a,p-unsaturated aldehydes by Melchiorre and Cordova showed diarylprolinol silyl ether 55 was effective in the conjugate addition of diphenylphosphine 74 [117, 118], Direct transformation of the products allowed for one-pot methods for the preparation of P-phosphine alcohols 75 (72-85% yield 90-98% ee), P-phosphine oxide acids 76 (65% yield 92% ee) and 3-amino phosphines 77 (71% yield 87% ee) (Scheme 34). These reports represent the first examples of the addition of P-centred nucleophiles and the resulting highly functionalised products may well have further use in asymmetric catalysis. 

In 2008, the same group employed chiral dicarboxylic acid (R)-5 (5 mol%, R = 4- Bu-2,6-Me2-CgHj) as the catalyst in the asymmetric addition of aldehyde N,N-dialkylhydrazones 81 to aromatic iV-Boc-imines 11 in the presence of 4 A molecular sieves to provide a-amino hydrazones 176, valuable precursors of a-amino ketones, in good yields with excellent enantioselectivities (35-89%, 84-99% ee) (Scheme 74) [93], Aldehyde hydrazones are known as a class of acyl anion equivalents due to their aza-enamine structure. Their application in the field of asymmetric catalysis has been limited to the use of formaldehyde hydrazones (Scheme 30). Remarkably, the dicarboxylic acid-catalyzed method applied not only to formaldehyde hydrazone 81a (R = H) but also allowed for the use of various aryl-aldehyde hydrazones 81b (R = Ar) under shghtly modified conditions. Prior to this... 

Since the pioneering studies of asymmetric catalysis with core-functionalized dendrimers reported by Brunner (88) and Bolm (89), several noteworthy investigations have been described in this field. Some examples of the dendritic effects observed in enantioselective catalysis with dendrimers having active sites in the core were discussed in Section II, such as the catalytic experiments with TADDOL-cored dendrimers described by Seebach et al. (59) the asymmetric addition of Et2Zn to aldehydes catalyzed by core-functionalized phenylacetylene-containing dendrimers reported by Hu et al (42)-, the asymmetric hydrogenation investigations with (R)-BINAP core-functionalized dendrimers synthesized by Fan et al. (36) or the results... 

From the 1980s on, many efforts were directed toward asymmetric induction of nitrile oxide cycloadditions to give pure (dia)stereoisomeric isoxazolines, and acyclic products derived from them (17,18,20-23). The need to obtain optically active cycloaddition products for use in the synthesis of natural products was first served by using chiral olefins, relying on 1,2-asymmetric induction, and then with optically active aldehydes or nitro compounds for the nitrile oxide part. In the latter case, insufficient induction occurs using chiral nitrile oxides, a problem still unsolved today. Finally, in the last 5 years, the first cases of successful asymmetric catalysis were found (29), which will certainly constitute a major area of study in the coming decade. 

Another significant development in oxazoline chemistry is the application of oxazoline-containing ligands for asymmetric catalysis, such as palladium-catalyzed allylic substimtions, Heck reactions, hydrogenations, dialkylzinc additions to aldehydes, and Michael reactions. The discovery of diastereoselective metalation of chiral ferrocenyloxazolines has further expanded the availability of chiral ligands for metal-catalytic reactions. 

All the derivatives prepared from aldehyde 2 can be obtained as pure enantiomers if desired, e.g., for use as ligands in asymmetric catalysis. Investigations of diastereoselective processes can of course be carried out using racemic phospha-ferrocene compounds. 

Chirality plays a central role in the chemical, biological, pharmaceutical and material sciences. Owing to the recent advances in asymmetric catalysis, catalytic enantioselective synthesis has become one of the most efficient methods for the preparation of enantiomer-ically enriched compounds. An increased amount of enantiomerically enriched product can be obtained from an asymmetric reaction using a small amount of an asymmetric catalyst. Studies on the enantioselective addition of dialkylzincs to aldehydes have attracted increasing interest. After the chiral amino alcohols were developed, highly enantioselective and reproducible —C bond forming reactions have become possible. 

Cyanation of carbonyl compounds has one of the richest histories of any transformation in the field of asymmetric catalysis, and intensive research efforts have continued unabated since the editorial deadline for the first edition of Comprehensive Asymmetric Catalysis in 1998. This chapter will summarize all efforts in this area from 1998 to date, highlighting the most important catalytic systems from a synthetic and/or mechanistic standpoint. Significant advances in both the cyanation of aldehydes (formation of secondary cyanohydrins Section 28.2.1) and the cyanation of ketones (formation of tertiary cyanohydrins Section 28.2.2) will be addressed [1,2]. 

Keywords Aldol, Direct, Ketone, Asymmetric catalysis, Enantioselective reaction, Diastereo-selectivity, 1,2-Diol, Aldehyde, Enamine, Lewis acid, Bronsted base, Organocatalysis, Bimetal-... 

Asymmetric catalysis of BINOL-Ti complexes in the reaction of aliphatic and aromatic aldehydes with an allylstannane has also been reported independently by Umani-Ronchi [54] and Keck [55]. The former group has suggested that a new complex generated by the reaction of the BINOL-Ti complex with allylstannane is the catalytic species that provides remarkably high enantioselectivity (Scheme 8C.23). It is interesting that no reaction occurs if dry MS 4A... 

Recent developments in the asymmetric addition of aldehydes have been reviewed,206 as have asymmetric catalysis using metal complexes207 and nucleophile isotope effects 208... 

As a parallel to the rapid growth of asymmetric catalysis, chiral imida-zolidinon-HX salts 124a-c were used as catalysts for Michael-type alkylations between indoles and a,(3-unsaturated aldehydes with high levels of enan-tioselectivity and reaction efficiency. This chiral catalyst system is the first reported nonchelating catalyst for indole alkylation. It was assumed that the catalyst reacts with the unsaturated aldehydes to yield the chiral and highly reactive imimum intermediate, which influences both the LUMO-lowering... 

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