Aldol reactions of aldehydes

Control of Regio- and Stereoselectivity of Aldol Reactions of Aldehydes and Ketones... 

Motherwell and Whitehead et al. reported a similar intramolecular reductive aldol reaction of aldehyde-enoate derivatives. The cyclization of 6-oxo-ester 23 was catalyzed by RhCl(PPh3)3 (1 mol%) with Et3SiH (210 mol%) as terminal reductant (Scheme 9) [17,18]. The cyclization proceeded at 50 °C for 18 h to give the aldol product 24 in 81% yield with ds-selectivity (cis trans =... 

Mukaiyama aldol reactions of aldehydes with silyl enol ethers are amongst the most widely used Lewis-acid-mediated or -catalyzed reactions. However, trimethylsilyl triflate is not active enough to promote these reactions,66 and more active silicon-based Lewis acids have been developed. One example is the species generated by mixing trimethylsilyl triflate (or chloride) and B(OTf)3,319,320 for which the formulation R3Si + [B(OTf)4] is suggested by NMR experiments. Only a catalytic amount of this was needed to complete Mukaiyama aldol reactions of... 

Sn(OTf)2 can function as a catalyst for aldol reactions, allylations, and cyanations asymmetric versions of these reactions have also been reported. Diastereoselective and enantioselective aldol reactions of aldehydes with silyl enol ethers using Sn(OTf)2 and a chiral amine have been reported (Scheme SO) 338 33 5 A proposed active complex is shown in the scheme. Catalytic asymmetric aldol reactions using Sn(OTf)2, a chiral diamine, and tin(II) oxide have been developed.340 Tin(II) oxide is assumed to prevent achiral reaction pathway by weakening the Lewis acidity of Me3SiOTf, which is formed during the reaction. 

The synthesis of the BC-ring fragment 26 begins with the enantioselective aldol reaction of aldehyde 22 and chiral boron enolate 23 derived from (—)-DIP-Cl as described by Paterson and Brown [42]. The aldol adduct 24 is converted to the... 

The synthesis of optically active nitrones (95) was carried out by an aldol reaction of aldehydes (93), catalyzed by L- proline, with carbonyl activated compounds (94) and by an in situ reaction with N -alkylhydroxylamines (Scheme 2.36, Table 2.5) (261). 

The next step to erythronolide A is the coupling of fragments A and B. Asymmetric aldol reaction of aldehyde 2 with a lithium enolate generated from... 

Lewis acids as water-stable catalysts have been developed. Metal salts, such as rare earth metal triflates, can be used in aldol reactions of aldehydes with silyl enolates in aqueous media. These salts can be recovered after the reactions and reused. Furthermore, surfactant-aided Lewis acid catalysis, which can be used for aldol reactions in water without using any organic solvents, has been also developed. These reaction systems have been applied successfully to catalytic asymmetric aldol reactions in aqueous media. In addition, the surfactant-aided Lewis acid catalysis for Mannich-type reactions in water has been disclosed. These investigations are expected to contribute to the decrease of the use of harmful organic solvents in chemical processes, leading to environmentally friendly green chemistry. 

Judging from these findings, the mechanism of Lewis acid catalysis in water (for example, aldol reactions of aldehydes with silyl enol ethers) can be assumed to be as follows. When metal compounds are added to water, the metals dissodate and hydration occurs immediatdy. At this stage, the intramolecular and intermolecular exchange reactions of water molecules frequently occur. If an aldehyde exists in the system, there is a chance that it will coordinate to the metal cations instead of the water molecules and the aldehyde is then activated. A silyl enol ether attacks this adivated aldehyde to produce the aldol adduct. According to this mechanism, it is expected that many Lewis acid-catalyzed reactions should be successful in aqueous solutions. Although the precise activity as Lewis acids in aqueous media cannot be predicted quantitatively... 

With these results in hand, we have next introduced new types of Lewis acids, e.g scandium tris(-dodecyl sulfate) (4a) and scandium trisdodecanesul-fonate (5a) (Chart 1).[1S1 These Lewis acid-surfactant-combined catalysts (LASCs) were found to form stable colloidal dispersions with organic substrates in water and to catalyze efficiently aldol reactions of aldehydes with very water-labile silyl enol ethers. 

Y. M. A Yamada, N. Yoshikawa, H. Sasai, M. Shibasaki, Direct Catalytic Asymmetric Aldol Reactions of Aldehydes and Unmodified Ketones, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed EngL 1997, 36,1871-1873. 

Scheme 25 Vinylogous Mukaiyama aldol reaction of aldehyde 53 and ketene acetal 54 catalyzed by different Lewis acids...

The cationic iridium complex [Ir(cod)(PPh3)2]OTf, when activated by H2, catalyzes the aldol reaction of aldehydes 141 or acetal with silyl enol ethers 142 to afford 143 (Equation 10.37) [63]. The same Ir complex catalyzes the coupling of a, 5-enones with silyl enol ethers to give 1,5-dicarbonyl compounds [64]. Furthermore, the alkylation of propargylic esters 144 with silyl enol ethers 145 catalyzed by [Ir(cod)[P(OPh)3]2]OTf gives alkylated products 146 in high yields (Equation 10.38) [65]. An iridium-catalyzed enantioselective reductive aldol reaction has also been reported [66]. 

Marhwald reported that ligand exchange of Ti(rac-BINOLate)(Of-Bu)2 with optically active a-hydroxy acids presents an unexpected and novel approach to enantio-selective direct aldol reactions of aldehydes and ketones (Scheme 12.19). The aldol products have been isolated with a high degree of syn diastereoselectivity. High enantioselectivities have been observed when using simple optically pure a-hydroxy acids. 

Lewis acids are quite often used as catalysts in organic synthesis. Although most Lewis acids decompose in water, it was found that rare earth triflates such as Sc(OTf)3, Yb(OTf)3, etc. can be used as Lewis acid catalysts in water or water-containing solvents (water-compatible Lewis acids) [6-9]. For example, the Mukaiyama aldol reactions of aldehydes with silyl enol ethers were catalyzed by Yb(OTf)3 in water-THF (1 4) to give the corresponding aldol adducts in high yields [10, 11]. Interestingly, when the reactions were carried out in dry THF (without water), the yield of the aldol adducts was very low (ca. 10%). Thus, this catalyst is not only compatible with water but also is activated by water, probably due to dissociation of the counteranions from the Lewis acidic metal. Furthermore, the catalyst can be easily recovered and reused. 

The gold catalyst has provided some very important achievements in chemistry in general, such as the asymmetric aldol reaction of aldehydes with isocyanoacetates reported by Ito, Sawamura and Hayashi [12,176]. The use of chiral ferrocenylpho-sphine gold (I) complexes allowed them to obtain enantiomerically-pure oxazo-lines. 

Important extensions of proline catalysis in direct aldol reactions were also reported. Pioneering work by List and co-workers demonstrated that hydroxy-acetone (24) effectively serves as a donor substrate to afford anfi-l,2-diol 25 with excellent enantioselectivity (Scheme 11) [24]. The method represents the first catalytic asymmetric synthesis of anf/-l,2-diols and complements the asymmetric dihydroxylation developed by Sharpless and other researchers (described in Chap. 20). Barbas utilized proline to catalyze asymmetric self-aldoli-zation of acetaldehyde [25]. Jorgensen reported the cross aldol reaction of aldehydes and activated ketones like diethyl ketomalonate, in which the aldehyde... 

The products of crotylation and aldol reactions of aldehyde 30 to give 31 and 33 are shown below. O/onolysis makes it pussible to transform 31 into 33. This leads to the possibility of replacing the aldol reaction by a reaction sequence of crotylation and o/onolysis. With respect to allylation reactions and o/onolysis, see Chapter 5. 

As pointed out by Togni and Pastor, enantioselectivities in the gold-catalyzed aldol reaction of aldehydes containing an a-heteroatom are significantly different from those of simple aldehydes (Table 8B1.3) [15,16]. Low enantioselectivities for rrani-oxazolines are observed in the aldol reactions of 2-thiophene-, 2-furan-, and 2-pyridinecarboxaldehyde (entries 2, 4,7). In the reactions of the 2-furan- and 2-pyridinecarboxaldehyde, cA-oxazolines with fairly high enantiomeric purities are formed as the minor product but in a rather low trans/cis ratio. A similar a-heteroatom effect is also observed in the aldol reaction of 2,3-Oisopropylidene-D-glyceraldehyde. 

Aldol reactions of aldehydes with cycloakanones were performed in ionic liquids and catalyzed by FeCl3-6H20 [32]. Mukaiyama aldol reactions of silylenol ethers with aldehydes can be carried out in aqueous media however, among several Lewis acidic catalysts investigated, iron compounds were not the optimal ones [33], If silyl ketene acetals are applied as carbon nucleophiles in Mukaiyama aldol reactions, cationic Fe(II) complexes give good results. As catalysts, CpFe(CO)2Cl [34] and [CpFe(dppe) (acetone)] BF4 [35] [dppe = l,2-bis(diphenylphosphano)ethane] were applied (Scheme 8.8). No diastereomeric ratio was reported for product 26a. 

An iron-catalyzed multicomponent reaction of aldehyde 4a, acetophenone, acetyl chloride and acetonitrile, which was used as the solvent, gave P-amino ketones such as 32 (Scheme 8.11) [41]. It was assumed that the sequence starts with an aldol reaction of aldehyde and ketone and then proceeds further with a displacement of a P-acetoxy group by the nucleophilic nitrile-nitrogen. 

The Denmark phosphoramide organocatalyst has recently been applied in the first catalytic, diastereoselective, and enantioselective crossed-aldol reaction of aldehydes [86]. It is worthy of note that such controlled stereoselective selfcondensation of aldehydes has previously found no general application, because of many side-reactions, e.g. polyaldolization, and dehydration of the products. Several previously developed solutions have limitations. In a first step the Denmark group developed a procedure for generation of stereodefined trichlorosilyl enolates of aldehydes with high geometrical purity. Use of these geometrically pure (Z) and... 

Bryostatin 7 (3) was the first member of the bryostatin family that was accessible by total synthesis. Its preparation was described by Masamune et al. already briefly after its isolation from Bugula neritina [8]. Their concept was based on a combination of the four synthons 4-7 (Figure 2) The (R,R)-2,5-dimethylborolanyl triflate mediated aldol reaction of aldehyde 4 with the enolate derived from ketone 5 leads after a sequence of deprotection steps, cycliza-... 

The design for a direct catalytic asymmetric aldol reaction of aldehydes and unmodified ketones with bifunctional catalysts is shown in Figure 36. A Brpnsted basic functionality (OM) in the heterobimetallic asymmetric catalyst (I) could deprotonate the a-proton of a ketone to generate the metal enolate (II), while at the same time a Lewis acidic functionality (LA) could activate an aldehyde to give (III), which would then react with the metal enolate (in a chelation-controlled fashion) in an asymmetric environment to afford a P-keto metal alkoxide (IV). 

S)-Proline-catalyzed aldehyde donor reactions were first studied in Michael [21] and Mannich reactions (see below), and later in self-aldol and in cross-aldol reactions. (S)-Proline-catalyzed self-aldol and cross-aldol reactions of aldehydes are listed in Table 2.6 [22-24]. In self-aldol reactions, the reactant aldehyde serves as both the aldol donor and the acceptor whereas in cross-aldol reactions, the donor aldehyde and acceptor aldehyde are different. 

Aldol and Mannich-Type Reactions 27 Table 2.6 (S)-Proline-catalyzed cross-aldol reactions of aldehyde donors.3)... 

S)-Proline-catalyzed cross-aldol reaction of aldehydes followed by Mukaiyama aldol reaction sequence was used for the synthesis of prelactone B [27]. The products of the aldol reactions of O-protected a-oxyaldehydes are protected carbohydrates, and were also transformed to highly enantiomerically enriched hexose derivatives, again through a second Mukaiyama aldol reaction (Scheme 2.5) [28]. The products of the aldol reactions of N-protected a-aminoaldehyde donor were easily converted to the corresponding highly enantiomerically enriched /Miydroxy-a-amino acids and their derivatives (Scheme 2.6) [24]. (For experimental details see Chapter 14.1.1). 

For the aldol reactions of aldehyde donors using (S)-proline or diamine (S)-8-CF3C02H, the major products and the proposed most suitable transition state that explains the stereochemistries of the products are also shown in Scheme 2.12 [8, 29a]. 

Scheme 2.12 The proposed most suitable transition states of the (S)-proline-catalyzed and diamine 8-CF3C02H-catalyzed aldol reactions of aldehyde donors [29b].

General Procedures for (S)-Proline-Catalyzed Cross-Aldol Reactions of Aldehyde Donors (p. 28)... 

Taddol-Catalyzed Mukaiyama Aldol Reactions of Aldehydes [7] (p. 245)... 

Benito Alcaide, Pedro Almendros The Direct Catalytic Asymmetric Cross-Aldol Reaction of Aldehydes, Angew. Chem. 115(8), 884-886 (2003), Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 42(8), 858-860 (2003)... 

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