Allylic sharpless epoxidation

Sharpless epoxidations can also be used to separate enantiomers of chiral allylic alcohols by kinetic resolution (V.S. Martin, 1981 K.B. Sharpless, 1983 B). In this procedure the epoxidation of the allylic alcohol is stopped at 50% conversion, and the desired alcohol is either enriched in the epoxide fraction or in the non-reacted allylic alcohol fraction. Examples are given in section 4.8.3. 

A catalytic enantio- and diastereoselective dihydroxylation procedure without the assistance of a directing functional group (like the allylic alcohol group in the Sharpless epox-idation) has also been developed by K.B. Sharpless (E.N. Jacobsen, 1988 H.-L. Kwong, 1990 B.M. Kim, 1990 H. Waldmann, 1992). It uses osmium tetroxide as a catalytic oxidant (as little as 20 ppm to date) and two readily available cinchona alkaloid diastereomeis, namely the 4-chlorobenzoate esters or bulky aryl ethers of dihydroquinine and dihydroquinidine (cf. p. 290% as stereosteering reagents (structures of the Os complexes see R.M. Pearlstein, 1990). The transformation lacks the high asymmetric inductions of the Sharpless epoxidation, but it is broadly applicable and insensitive to air and water. Further improvements are to be expected. 

The Sharpless epoxidation is one of the most important of the newer organic reactions. Although limited to allylic alcohols, it has found wide application in natural product synthesis. 

Previous syntheses of terminal alkynes from aldehydes employed Wittig methodology with phosphonium ylides and phosphonates. 6 7 The DuPont procedure circumvents the use of phosphorus compounds by using lithiated dichloromethane as the source of the terminal carbon. The intermediate lithioalkyne 4 can be quenched with water to provide the terminal alkyne or with various electrophiles, as in the present case, to yield propargylic alcohols, alkynylsilanes, or internal alkynes. Enantioenriched terminal alkynylcarbinols can also be prepared from allylic alcohols by Sharpless epoxidation and subsequent basic elimination of the derived chloro- or bromomethyl epoxide (eq 5). A related method entails Sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylation of an allylic chloride and base treatment of the acetonide derivative.8 In these approaches the product and starting material contain the same number of carbons. 

Finally, the necessity arose for the synthesis of pentulose 21, labeled with, 3C on the central carbons, C-2 and C-3, for an independent biosynthetic study, which is reported in Section III.5.27 The doubly labeled ester 34 (Scheme 14) is readily available by a Wittig- Homer condensation of benzyloxyacetaldehyde with commercially available triethylphosphono-(l,2-l3C2)acetate. Chirality was introduced by the reduction of ester 34 to the allylic alcohol, which produced the chiral epoxide 35 by the Sharpless epoxidation procedure. This was converted into the tetrose 36, and thence, into the protected pentulose 37 by the usual sequence of Grignard reaction and oxidation. 

Allylic alcohols can be converted to epoxy-alcohols with tert-butylhydroperoxide on molecular sieves, or with peroxy acids. Epoxidation of allylic alcohols can also be done with high enantioselectivity. In the Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation,allylic alcohols are converted to optically active epoxides in better than 90% ee, by treatment with r-BuOOH, titanium tetraisopropoxide and optically active diethyl tartrate. The Ti(OCHMe2)4 and diethyl tartrate can be present in catalytic amounts (15-lOmol %) if molecular sieves are present. Polymer-supported catalysts have also been reported. Since both (-t-) and ( —) diethyl tartrate are readily available, and the reaction is stereospecific, either enantiomer of the product can be prepared. The method has been successful for a wide range of primary allylic alcohols, where the double bond is mono-, di-, tri-, and tetrasubstituted. This procedure, in which an optically active catalyst is used to induce asymmetry, has proved to be one of the most important methods of asymmetric synthesis, and has been used to prepare a large number of optically active natural products and other compounds. The mechanism of the Sharpless epoxidation is believed to involve attack on the substrate by a compound formed from the titanium alkoxide and the diethyl tartrate to produce a complex that also contains the substrate and the r-BuOOH. ... 

The stereochemistry of the first step was ascertained by an X-ray analysis [8] of an isolated oxazaphospholidine 3 (R = Ph). The overall sequence from oxi-rane to aziridine takes place with an excellent retention of chiral integrity. As the stereochemistry of the oxirane esters is determined by the chiral inductor during the Sharpless epoxidation, both enantiomers of aziridine esters can be readily obtained by choosing the desired antipodal tartrate inductor during the epoxidation reaction. It is relevant to note that the required starting allylic alcohols are conveniently prepared by chain elongation of propargyl alcohol as a C3 synthon followed by an appropriate reduction of the triple bond, e. g., with lithium aluminum hydride [6b]. 

Fig. 12.4. Successive models of the transition state for Sharpless epoxidation. (a) the hexacoordinate Ti core with uncoordinated alkene (b) Ti with methylhydroperoxide, allyl alcohol, and ethanediol as ligands (c) monomeric catalytic center incorporating t-butylhydroperoxide as oxidant (d) monomeric catalytic center with formyl groups added (e) dimeric transition state with chiral tartrate model (E = CH = O). Reproduced from J. Am. Chem. Soc., 117, 11327 (1995), by permission of the American Chemical Society. 

An effective deoxygenation using enantiomerically pure epoxides from primary allylic alcohols ( Sharpless epoxides ) [44] to give enantiomerically pure secondary allylic alcohols was described by Yadav [45]. This approach circumvented a kinetic resolution of secondary allylic alcohols that implies a maximum yield of 50% ( Scheme 5). 

Sharpless epoxidation involves treating an allylic alcohol with titanium(IV) tetraisopropoxide [Ti(0-/Pr)4], tert-butyl hydroperoxide [t-BuOOH], and a specific enantiomer of a tartrate ester. 

The scope of metal-mediated asymmetric epoxidation of allylic alcohols was remarkably enhanced by a new titanium system introduced by Katsuki and Sharpless epoxidation of allylic alcohols using a titanium(IV) isopropoxide, dialkyl tartrate (DAT), and TBHP (TBHP = tert-butyl-hydroperoxide) proceeds with high enantioselectivity and good chemical yield, regardless of... 

ASYMMETRIC EPOXIDATION OF ALLYLIC ALCOHOLS SHARPLESS EPOXIDATION... 

The Sharpless epoxidation is a popular laboratory process that is both enantioselective and catalytic in nature. Not only does it employ inexpensive reagents and involve various important substrates (allylic alcohols) and products (epoxides) in organic synthesis, but it also demonstrates unusually wide applicability because of its insensitivity to many aspects of substrate structure. Selection of the proper chirality in the starting tartrate esters and proper geometry of the allylic alcohols allows one to establish both the chirality and relative configuration of the product (Fig. 4-1). 

In Sharpless epoxidation reactions, (Z)-substituted allylic alcohols react much more slowly than the corresponding (E )-substituted substrates, and sometimes the reaction is sensitive to the position of preexisting chirality in the selected substrate. For instance, in the presence of (+)-DET, chiral (E)-allylic alcohol 10 undergoes epoxidation in 15 hours to give product 11 as the major product with a diastereomeric ratio of >20 1. As for reaction with ( )-DET, 12 is then obtained, also with a diastereoselectivity of >20 1 (Scheme 4-4). 

Sharpless epoxidation reactions are thoroughly discussed in Chapter 4. This section shows how this reaction is used in the asymmetric synthesis of PG side chains. Kinetic resolution of the allylic secondary alcohol ( )-82 allows the preparation of (R)-82 at about 50% yield with over 99% ee (Scheme 7-23).19... 

Another interesting application of the deoxygenation reaction is shown in Scheme 12.6. Sharpless epoxides are transformed to enantiomerically pure allylic alcohols [14]. It should be noted that the disadvantage of the loss of one-half of the allylic alcohol, as in the case of kinetic resolutions of allylic alcohols, is not a problem when this protocol is employed. 

Poly(octamethylene tartrate) can be used directly in place of dialkyl tartrates in the Sharpless epoxidation of allylic alcohols. 

Natural compounds are also applied as chiral ligands in enantioselective homogeneous metallo-catalysts. A classical example is the Sharpless epoxidation of primary allylic alcohols with tert-butyl hydroperoxide [37]. Here the diethyl ester of natural (R,R)-(+)-tartaric acid (a by-product of wine manufacture) is used as bi-dentate ligand of the Ti(iv) center. The enantiomeric excess is >90%. The addition of zeolite KA or NaA is essential [38], bringing about adsorption of traces of water and - by cation exchange - some ionization of the hydroperoxide. 

It should be added that many other groups have contributed to the predevelopments of these inventions and also to later developments. All four reactions find wide application in organic synthesis. The Sharpless epoxidation of allylic alcohols finds industrial application in Arco s synthesis of glycidol, the epoxidation product of allyl alcohol, and Upjohn s synthesis of disparlure (Figure 14.4), a sex pheromone for the gypsy moth. The synthesis of disparlure starts with a Ci3 allylic alcohol in which, after asymmetric epoxidation, the alcohol is replaced by the other carbon chain. Perhaps today the Jacobsen method can be used directly on a suitable Ci9 alkene, although the steric differences between both ends of the molecules are extremely small ... 

Diastereofacial selectivity in Sharpless epoxidation of 1-substituted allylic alcohols... 

Asymmetric epoxidation of olefins is an effective approach for the synthesis of enan-tiomerically enriched epoxides. A variety of efficient methods have been developed [1, 2], including Sharpless epoxidation of allylic alcohols [3, 4], metal-catalyzed epoxidation of unfunctionalized olefins [5-10], and nucleophilic epoxidation of electron-deficient olefins [11-14], Dioxiranes and oxazirdinium salts have been proven to be effective oxidation reagents [15-21], Chiral dioxiranes [22-28] and oxaziridinium salts [19] generated in situ with Oxone from ketones and iminium salts, respectively, have been extensively investigated in numerous laboratories and have been shown to be useful toward the asymmetric epoxidation of alkenes. In these epoxidation reactions, only a catalytic amount of ketone or iminium salt is required since they are regenerated upon epoxidation of alkenes (Scheme 1). 

Last year, a short enantioselective total synthesis of herbarumin III (42) in 11% overall yield was published the approach applied uses Keck s asymmetric allylation and Sharpless epoxidation to build the key fragment. Esterification with 5-hexenoic acid and a RCM was used to yield 42. Finally, another asymmetric synthesis of herbarumin III (42) was carried out using (R)-cyclohexylidene glyceraldehyde as the chiral template. The key steps of the synthesis were the enantioselective preparation of the... 

Isomerization of primary allylic alcohols proceeds in dichloromethane at 25 °C in the presence of a catalyst prepared in situ from VO(acac)2 or Mo02(acac)2 and BTSP to give tertiary isomers in good yields. This is in sharp contrast to the well-known Sharpless epoxidation of allylic alcohols. The catalysts are also effective for rearrangements of secondary-tertiary allylic alcohols. The isomerization of an allenyl allylic... 

Semen, reactive oxygen species, 612 Sensorial quaUty appreciation, oxidation stabihty, 664 Semm protein oxidative damage, 614 see also Human seram Sesquiterpenes, stractural chemistry, 133-6 SET see Single electron transfer Sharpless epoxidation, allylic alcohols, 789 Shelf durability, peroxide value, 656 Ship-in-the-bottle strategy, chiral dioxetane synthesis, 1176-7... 

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