Aldehydes enolates, alkylation

The SAMP/RAMP Method As early as 1976, azaenolates derived from A,A-dialkyl hydrazones were studied as an alternative to direct ketone and aldehyde enolate alkylations. These species were found to exhibit higher reactivity toward electrophiles, as well as better regioselectivity for C-alkylation than their parent carbonyl compounds. A,A-diaIkyl hydrazones are stable and are relatively easy to prepare, making them appealing from a practical point of view in comparison with imines and enamines, which can be difficult to form quantitatively and are hydrolytically unstable. Given these desirable attributes, Enders undertook the development of chiral nonrace-mic A,A-diaIkyl hydrazine auxiliaries for the asymmetric a-alkylation of ketones. The result of his efforts were (5)-and (R)-l-amino-2-methoxypyrrohdine hydrazine (1 and 2, respectively), now commonly known as the SAMP and RAMP auxiliaries, respectively (Figure 7.1). Over the years, the SAMP/RAMP method has come to be considered the state-of-the-art approach to asymmetric ketone... 

Silyl enol ethers are other ketone or aldehyde enolate equivalents and react with allyl carbonate to give allyl ketones or aldehydes 13,300. The transme-tallation of the 7r-allylpalladium methoxide, formed from allyl alkyl carbonate, with the silyl enol ether 464 forms the palladium enolate 465, which undergoes reductive elimination to afford the allyl ketone or aldehyde 466. For this reaction, neither fluoride anion nor a Lewis acid is necessary for the activation of silyl enol ethers. The reaction also proceed.s with metallic Pd supported on silica by a special method[301j. The ketene silyl acetal 467 derived from esters or lactones also reacts with allyl carbonates, affording allylated esters or lactones by using dppe as a ligand[302]... 

Among the compounds capable of forming enolates, the alkylation of ketones has been most widely studied and applied synthetically. Similar reactions of esters, amides, and nitriles have also been developed. Alkylation of aldehyde enolates is not very common. One reason is that aldehydes are rapidly converted to aldol addition products by base. (See Chapter 2 for a discussion of this reaction.) Only when the enolate can be rapidly and quantitatively formed is aldol formation avoided. Success has been reported using potassium amide in liquid ammonia67 and potassium hydride in tetrahydrofuran.68 Alkylation via enamines or enamine anions provides a more general method for alkylation of aldehydes. These reactions are discussed in Section 1.3. 

Osmium tetroxide used in combination with sodium periodate can also effect alkene cleavage.191 Successful oxidative cleavage of double bonds using ruthenium tetroxide and sodium periodate has also been reported.192 In these procedures the osmium or ruthenium can be used in substoichiometric amounts because the periodate reoxidizes the metal to the tetroxide state. Entries 1 to 4 in Scheme 12.18 are examples of these procedures. Entries 5 and 6 show reactions carried out in the course of multistep syntheses. The reaction in Entry 5 followed a 5-exo radical cyclization and served to excise an extraneous carbon. The reaction in Entry 6 followed introduction of the allyl group by enolate alkylation. The aldehyde group in the product was used to introduce an amino group by reductive alkylation (see Section 5.3.1.2). 

The synthesis in Scheme 13.21 starts with a lactone that is available in enantiomer-ically pure form. It was first subjected to an enolate alkylation that was stereocontrolled by the convex shape of the cis ring junction (Step A). A stereospecific Pd-mediated allylic substitution followed by LiAlH4 reduction generated the first key intermediate (Step B). This compound was oxidized with NaI04, converted to the methyl ester, and subjected to a base-catalyzed conjugation. After oxidation of the primary alcohol to an aldehyde, a Wittig-Horner olefination completed the side chain. 

The syntheses in Schemes 13.45 and 13.46 illustrate the use of oxazolidinone chiral auxiliaries in enantioselective synthesis. Step A in Scheme 13.45 established the configuration at the carbon that becomes C(4) in the product. This is an enolate alkylation in which the steric effect of the oxazolidinone chiral auxiliary directs the approach of the alkylating group. Step C also used the oxazolidinone structure. In this case, the enol borinate is formed and condensed with an aldehyde intermediate. This stereoselective aldol addition established the configuration at C(2) and C(3). The configuration at the final stereocenter at C(6) was established by the hydroboration in Step D. The selectivity for the desired stereoisomer was 85 15. Stereoselectivity in the same sense has been observed for a number of other 2-methylalkenes in which the remainder of the alkene constitutes a relatively bulky group.28 A TS such as 45-A can rationalize this result. 

The synthesis of the non-racemic cyclopentanone (+)-93 is outlined in Scheme 15. Starting with 2-methyl-cyclopent-2-enone (90), sequential cuprate addition and enolate alkylation afforded the racemic cyclopentanone rac-92 as a single diastereomer. The double bond was cleaved by ozonolysis, the resulting aldehyde chemoselectively reduced in the presence of the keto function and the primary hydroxyl function was subsequently protected as a silyl ether to provide racemic rac-93. This sequence has been applied fre-... 

Trost s group reported direct catalytic enantioselective aldol reaction of unmodified ketones using dinuclear Zn complex 21 [Eq. (13.10)]. This reaction is noteworthy because products from linear aliphatic aldehydes were also obtained in reasonable chemical yields and enantioselectivity, in addition to secondary and tertiary alkyl-substituted aldehydes. Primary alkyl-substituted aldehydes are normally problematic substrates for direct aldol reaction because self-aldol condensation of the aldehydes complicates the reaction. Bifunctional Zn catalysis 22 was proposed, in which one Zn atom acts as a Lewis acid to activate an aldehyde and the other Zn-alkoxide acts as a Bronsted base to generate a Zn-enolate. The... 

Aldol addition and condensation reactions involving two different carbonyl compounds are called mixed aldol reactions. For these reactions to be useful as a method for synthesis, there must be some basis for controlling which carbonyl component serves as the electrophile and which acts as the enolate precursor. One of the most general mixed aldol condensations involves the use of aromatic aldehydes with alkyl ketones or aldehydes. Aromatic aldehydes are incapable of enolization and cannot function as the nucleophilic component. Furthermore, dehydration is especially favorable because the resulting enone is conjugated with the aromatic ring. 

The formation of aldehyde enolates is complicated by the disposition of aldehydes to undergo aldol condensation. Therefore, there are very few examples of direct asymmetric alkylations of aldehydes. 

The same strategy has been used by Williams (90JA808) in his synthesis of brevianamide B. The aldehyde (82), prepared enantioselectively from L-proline, was converted to the silyl ether. Acylation of this (BuLi, ClC02Me) gave the carbomethoxy derivative as a mixture of diastereo-mers, which was alkylated by gramine. As before, an enolate alkylation (Sn2 ) on an allyl chloride derived from the above gave the tricyclic compound, which could be transformed to brevianamide B (Scheme 24). 

Let us have a look at some instructive pH-rate profiles. That for acetophenone was already discussed in the section pH-Rate Profiles (Fig. 3). Its general shape is characteristic for the behavior of the enols of simple ketones and aldehydes. The enolization constants of aldehydes tend to be higher than those of ketones compare, for example, pA h(acetonc) = 8.33 and pA"E(acetaldehyde) 6.23. This is in line with the well-known stabilizing effect of alkyl substitution on double bonds, in particular of the polar C=0 bond, a-Substitution of ketones and aldehydes by alkyl or, better still, by aryl groups further stabilizes the enol, so that the enol content of 2,2-diphenylacetaldehyde reaches 10%.34... 

The /3-lactone was formed by the cyclization of a 3-hydroxycarboxylic acid with sulfonyl chloride. An alternative synthesis attempted to control all stereochemical relationships in the molecule using the properties of silyl moieties attached to substrates and reagents <20040BC1051>. Stereoselective reactions of this type included the use of silyl groups in enolate alkylations, hydroboration of allylsilanes, and an anti Se2 reaction of an allenyl silane with an aldehyde and ry -silylcupration of an acetylene. The /3-lactone was again formed by the standard sulfonyl chloride cyclization method. 

Assembly of the subunits began with the Nozaki-Kishi coupling reaction of iodoacetylene 13 and aldehyde 12, in the presence of CrCl2/NiCl2, to provide propargylic alcohol 23, with 3 1 dr at C7 (Scheme 3). The four-step conversion to bromide 24 was followed by the enolate alkylation of methyl ketone 14. 

These side-reactions mean that aldehyde enolates are not generally useful reactive intermediates. Instead, there are a number of aldehyde enol and enolate equivalents in which the aldehyde is present only in masked form during the enolization and alkylation step. The three most important of these specific enol equivalents are ... 

That said, enamines are a good solution to the aldehyde enolate problem. Aldehydes form enamines very easily (one of the advantages of the electrophilic aldehyde) and these are immune to attack by nucleophiles—including most importantly the enamines themselves. Below are two examples of aldehyde alkylation using the enamine method. 

Aza-enolate alkylation is so successful that it has been extended from aldehydes, where it is essential, to ketones where it can be a useful option. Cyclohexanones are among the most electrophilic simple ketones and can suffer from undesirable side-reactions. The imine from cyclohexanone and cyclohexylamine can be deprotonated with LDA to give a lithium aza-enolate. In this example, iodomethylstannane was the alkylating agent, giving the tin-containing ketone after hydrolysis. 

Potassium enolates of aldehydes, Enolates of aldehydes are somewhat difficult to generate because of competing polymerization by base. They have been obtained recently in high yield by use of potassium hydride in THF at 0° and successfully alkylated, sulfenylated with diphenyl disulfide, and converted into o-iodo aldehydes by iodine. The last two reactions have not been observed previously. Sulfenylation of aldehydes has previously used indirectly generated lithium enolates and a reactive sulfenyl chloride. All three reactions are useful, however, for aldehydes with only one a-proton. Otherwise yields of monosubstituted aldehydes are low and largely by-products are obtained. 

Aldol Reactions. Pseudoephedrine amide enolates have been shown to undergo highly diastereoselective aldol addition reactions, providing enantiomerically enriched p-hydroxy acids, esters, ketones, and their derivatives (Table 11). The optimized procedure for the reaction requires enolization of the pseudoephedrine amide substrate with LDA followed by transmeta-lation with 2 equiv of ZrCp2Cl2 at —78°C and addition of the aldehyde electrophile at — 105°C. It is noteworthy that the reaction did not require the addition of lithium chloride to favor product formation as is necessary in many other pseudoephedrine amide enolate alkylation reactions. The stereochemistry of the alkylation is the same as that observed with alkyl halides and the formation of the 2, i-syn aldol adduct is favored. The tendency of zirconium enolates to form syn aldol products has been previously reported. The p-hydroxy amide products obtained can be readily transformed into the corresponding acids, esters, and ketones as reported with other alkylated pseudoephedrine amides. An asymmetric aldol reaction between an (S,S)-(+)-pseudoephe-drine-based arylacetamide and paraformaldehyde has been used to prepare enantiomerically pure isoflavanones. ... 

Aldol condensations of more complex aldehydes are often sufficiently slow to allow successful alkylation reactions. There are numerous examples of aldehyde enolate methylations in the field of natural product synthesis. As shown in Scheme 29, the methylation of a tricyclic aldehyde, which was employed in the synthesis of ( )-rimuene, provides an illustrative case. As expected for an exocyclic enolate intermediate such as (61), the methyl group was introduced equatorial to the six-membered ring with a high degree of stereoselectivity. a-Alkylated aldehydes may be prepared efficiently by alkylations of enamines, Schiff base anions, hydrazone anions and other methods. A discussion of this methodology is provided in Section 1.1.5. 

Prior to the discoveries that lithium and other less electropositive metal cations were valuable counterions for enolate alkylations, the Stork enamine reaction was introduced to overcome problems such as loss of regioselectivity and polyalkylation that plagued attempts to alkylate sodium or potassium enolates of ketones or aldehydes.Methods of synthesis of enamines by reactions of ketones and aldehydes with secondary amines have been thoroughly reviewed.Enamine alkylations are usually conducted in methanol, dioxane or acetonitrile. Enamines are ambident nucleophiles and C- and V-alkylations are usually competitive. Subsequent hydrolysis of the C-alkylated product (an iminium salt) yields an... 

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