Alkyllithium reagents, addition reactions

Direct lithiation of pyridine is a common method of generating the precursors required for the organopalladium cross-coupling reactions. However, if one is not carefiil, the pyridine ring is susceptible to direct addition of the alkyllithium reagent (Chichibabin reaction) as opposed to deprotonation of the ring. 

The number of examples of reaction with alkyllithium reagents is very limited (14,48). The similarity of the reaetion to Grignard addition suggests that similar products will be obtained. This suggestion is supported by the examples shown in Table 6. 

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 mechanism of organolithium addition to naphthyl oxazolines is believed to occur via initial complexation of the alkyllithium reagent to the oxazoline nitrogen atom and the methyl ether to form chelated intermediate 17. Addition of the alkyl group to the arena 7t-system affords azaenolate 18, which undergoes reaction with an electrophile on the opposite face of the alkyl group to provide the observed product 4. The chelating methyl... 

These reagents are not isolated but are used directly in reactions with aldehydes, after generation of ate complexes via the addition of an alkyllithium reagent or pyridine11. 2-(2-Propenyl)-1,3,2-dioxaborolane is also metalated upon treatment with lithium tetramethylpiperidide, but mixtures of a- and y-substitution products are obtained upon treatment of this anion with alkylating agents20. Consequently, this route to a-substituted allylboron compounds appears to be rather limited in scope. 

The addition reactions of alkyllithium-lithium bromide complexes to a-trimethylsilyl vinyl sulfones that have as a chiral auxiliary a y-mono-thioacetal moiety derived from ( + )-camphor are highly diastereoselective. A transition state that involves chelation of the organolithium reagent to the oxygen of the thioacetal moiety has been invoked. The adducts are readily converted via hydrolysis, to chiral a-substituted aldehydes22. 

The reaction has been applied to nonheterocyclic aromatic compounds Benzene, naphthalene, and phenanthrene have been alkylated with alkyllithium reagents, though the usual reaction with these reagents is 12-20, and Grignard reagents have been used to alkylate naphthalene. The addition-elimination mechanism apparently applies in these cases too. A protected form of benzaldehyde (protected as the benzyl imine) has been similarly alkylated at the ortho position with butyl-lithium. ... 

Additions of aryl- or alkyllithium reagents to N-silylated formamides 508 give the imines 509 in 55-80% yield [90, 91] some of these imines can subsequently be converted into the corresponding //-lactams by reaction with enolates of alkyl butyrates [92]. Conversion of N-silylated butyrolactam 388 into cyclic Schiff bases such as 390, by reaction with methyl- or butyllithium, via O-silylated butyrolactam 389, is discussed in Section 4.8 (Scheme 5.28). 

The reaction of spiro hydrophosphorane 70 (R = H) with 3 equiv of alkyllithium reagents, followed by addition of HC1, gave monocyclic hydrophosphorane 133 with the hydride in the apical position (Equation 10). Isomers with intramolecular hydrogen bonding and intermolecular bonding to a solvent molecule were separated and characterized by X-ray crystallography <1996TL8409>. 

Meyers and Shimano discovered the unusual deprotonation behavior of ethoxy-vinyllithium-HMPA complex (EVL-HMPA) for the deprotonation of the trans-oxazoline 366 and the cw-oxazoline 367. The EVL-HMPA complex is prepared by deprotonation of ethyl vinyl ether with ferf-butyllithium in THE followed by addition of HMPA. Reaction of the frani-oxazoline 366 with both the EVL-HMPA complex and conventional alkyllithium reagents (RLi) resulted in deprotonation at the benzylic 5-position. In contrast, deprotonation of 367 occurred at the 4-position with an alkyllithium reagent RLi, whereas benzylic deprotonation predominated with the EVL-HMPA complex (Scheme 8.117). ° The authors proposed that EVL-HMPA complexes with the 5-phenyl substituent prior to deprotonation. 

Reaction with isoprene epoxide. Alkyllithium reagents undergo 1,4-addition to isoprene epoxide to give predominately (Z)-allylic alcohols, particularly in the presence of a base (equation I). The reaction was used to prepare a-santalol (I) from n-bromotricyclene. 

Metallation of alkynylcyclopropanes at the acetylenic end is accomplished either by deprotonation or via metal-halide exchange reaction with strong bases. Metallation of ethynylcyclopropane may be affected by KOH in DMF, ethereal EtMgBr or preferably BuLi in THF (equation 151)231. All three metal acetyl ides react with methyl ketones to give the corresponding alcohols. However, the instability of cyclopropyl ketones towards bases, especially at the reaction conditions required by KOH (20 °C, 6h), and the sensitivity of cyclopropenyl double bonds in cyclopropenyl ketone derivatives towards addition reactions of alkylmagnesium compounds, make the alkyllithium (-78 °C, instant reaction) superior to the other reagents. 

A similar sequence of reactions occurs with LiBu, although in this instance methylation or protonation of the intermediates formed after addition of either two or three equivalents of alkyllithium reagent, respectively, allow the corresponding acyl - or hydroxyalkyl-vinylidene complexes to be isolated (26) ... 

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