Allylic cations polyene cyclization

Bicyclization of polyenes provides access to fused ring systems. When the cyclization leads to a cyclohexane ring, the reaction usually proceeds via a chairlike transition state. Thus, the allylic cation-promoted cyclization of the butenylcyclo-hexenol below presumably proceeds via formation of the allylic carbocation followed by cyclization. Equatorial interception of the resultant cation by the solvent furnishes the bicyclic formate ester. ... 

Polyene Cyclization. Perhaps the most synthetically useful of the carbo-cation alkylation reactions is the cyclization of polyenes having two or more double bonds positioned in such a way that successive bond-forming steps can occur. This process, called polyene cyclization, has proven to be an effective way of making polycyclic compounds containing six-membered and, in some cases, five-membered rings. The reaction proceeds through an electrophilic attack and requires that the double bonds that participate in the cyclization be properly positioned. For example, compound 1 is converted quantitatively to 2 on treatment with formic acid. The reaction is initiated by protonation and ionization of the allylic alcohol and is terminated by nucleophilic capture of the cyclized secondary carbocation. 

Scheme 10.1 gives some representative examples of laboratory syntheses involving polyene cyclization. The cyclization in Entry 1 is done in anhydrous formic acid and involves the formation of a symmetric tertiary allylic carbocation. The cyclization forms a six-membered ring by attack at the terminal carbon of the vinyl group. The bicyclic cation is captured as the formate ester. Entry 2 also involves initiation by a symmetric allylic cation. In this case, the triene unit cyclizes to a tricyclic ring system. Entry 3 results in the formation of the steroidal skeleton with termination by capture of the alkynyl group and formation of a ketone. The cyclization in Entry 4 is initiated by epoxide opening. 

A spectacular example of cationic cyclization is the Johnson polyene cyclization, described in Section 10.8.A. Polyenes such as squalene are expected to assume a steroid-like conformation in the lowest energy form (sec. 1.5.E), based on the biogenetic preparation of cholesterol from squalene. In practice, treatment of polyenes with acid led to a very low yield of tri- or tetracyclic products, giving instead significant amounts of polymeric material. Diligent work over many years prevailed, however, and Johnson solved the many problems (as described in sec. 10.8.A) to make this reaction an excellent and efficient synthetic route to di-, tri-, and tetracyclic molecules. One of the later examples of polyene cyclization uses an allyl silane to quench the cyclization process. A Lewis acid was used to initiate the reaction via reaction with the acetal. Treatment of... 

Electrocyclic reactions are not limited to neutral polyenes. The cyclization of a pentadienyl cation to a cyclopentenyl cation offers a useful entry to five-membered carbocycUc compounds. One such reaction is the Nazarov cyclization of divinyl ketones. Protonation or Lewis acid complexation of the oxygen atom of the carbonyl group of a divinyl ketone generates a pentadienyl cation. This cation undergoes electrocyclization to give an allyl cation within a cyclopentane ring. The allyl cation can lose a proton or be trapped, for example by a nucleophile. Proton loss occurs to give the thermodynamically more stable alkene and subsequent keto-enol tautomerism leads to the typical Nazarov product, a cyclopentenone (3.220). 

Attempts by Fish and Johnson to effect a steroid synthesis using a standard epoxide-initiated pentacyclization of a polyene afforded complex mixtures [69]. Alternatively, the allyl alcohol 326 was synthesized and treated with TFA (Scheme 19.60). Protonation affords a symmetrical tetramethylallyl cation that undergoes cyclization to give pentacycle 327 in 31% yield. Simultaneous cleavage of the isopropylidene and vinylidene groups was carried out to furnish the diketone 328 in 88% yield, which was then converted to sophoradiol (329). 

To be of maximum synthetic value, the generation of the cationic site that initiates cyclization must involve mild reaction conditions. Formic acid and stannic chloride have proved to be effective reagents for cyclization of polyunsaturated allylic alcholos. Acetals generate a-alkoxy carbocations in acidic solution and can also be used to initiate the cyclization of polyenes ... 

A series of carbocyclization cascades of allyl ketenimines initiated through a thermal aza-Claisen rearrangement of A-phosphoryl-A-allyl ynamides has been reported where interceptions of the cationic intermediate via Meerwein-Wagner rearrangements and polyene-type cyclizations are observed (Scheme 17) ... 

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