Alkenes ethylzincation

Scheme 1.61. Ethylzincation of alkenes catalyzed by Cp2ZrCI2-2EtMgBr.

The use of iodoform as the reagent precursor under Furukawa s conditions gives rise to a more complex scenario, since the additional C—I bonds can further react with an ethylzinc species (equation 8)" . The reaction of the iodo-substituted zinc carbenoid with an alkene will generate an iodo-substituted cyclopropane, whereas that involving the gem-dizinc carbenoid will lead to a cyclopropylzinc product. The evidence for the formation of a. gem-dizinc carbenoid was obtained not only by the analysis of the cyclopropanation products but also by the formation of rfi-iodomethane upon quenching the reagent with D2O/DCI. 

Mechanistically, the reaction initially proceeds through the formation of the zinc aUcox-ide, which then complexes a second equivalent of the reagent, and then undergoes a pseudo-intramolecular cyclopropanation (equation 48). It is therefore implicit that 2 equivalents of zinc are needed in these reactions, since the ethylzinc alkoxide does not form the corresponding iodomethylzinc alkoxide in the presence of iodomethane, and the latter does not cyclopropanate alkenes in the absence of a Lewis acid. 

This result prompted us to first apply the strategy to the asymmetric 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of nitrile oxides, which had not been developed when our research project started. The idea was presented as follows when nitrile oxide is generated in situ from hydroximoyl chloride by treatment with ethylzinc moiety as abase, the stereochemical course of nitrile oxide coordinated to the chiral zinc species 5 was anticipated to be controlled efficiently. In accordance with this hypothesis, the asymmetric 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of nitrile oxides to allylic alcohols was realized to afford the corresponding 2-isoxazolines 6 with excellent enantioselectivity (Eq. 11.3). Even when a catalytic amount (0.2 equiv) of diisopropyl (R,/f)-tartrate [(R,/ )-DlPT] was employed, the 2-isoxazolines 6 were obtained with the selectivity of up to 93% ee by the addition of a small amount of 1,4-dioxane (Eq. 11.4). This method was the first catalytic enantioselec-tive 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of nitrile oxides with alkenes. The method was efficiently applied to the total synthesis of (—)-Lasubine 11 (Scheme 11.2) [11]. 

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