Aluminum conjugated addition using

As described in Section 6.2.1.1, earlier application of conjugate addition involved transferable aluminum hydrides and alkyls. This section is devoted to asymmetric conjugate addition using a chiral aluminum catalyst and newer aspects that enable substrate generality wifh respect to both Michael acceptor and donor components, by use of well-designed aluminum reagents. 

Complexation of enones with MAD can be used to effect conjugate additions with organolithium reagents. This unusual 1,4-selectivity is observed mainly with cyclic systems and requires 2 equiv. of the aluminum reagent as well as of the nucleophile for full effect. 

Triethylaluminum-hydrogen cyanide and diethylaluminum cyanide are also useful reagents for conjugate addition of cyanide. The latter is the more reactive of the two reagents. These reactions presumably involve the coordination of the aluminum reagent as a Lewis acid at the carbonyl oxygen. 

Robinson annulation can also be carried out using aluminum tris(2,6-diphenylphen-oxide) to effect the conjugate addition and cyclization. 

Aluminum salen complexes have been identified as effective catalysts for asymmetric conjugate addition reactions of indoles [113-115]. The chiral Al(salen)Cl complex 128, which is commercially available, in the presence of additives such as aniline, pyridine and 2,6-lutidine, effectively catalyzed the enantioselective Michael-type addition of indoles to ( )-arylcrolyl ketones [115]. Interestingly, this catalyst system was used for the stereoselective Michael addition of indoles to aromatic nitroolefins in moderate enantiose-lectivity (Scheme 36). The Michael addition product 130 was easily reduced to the optically active tryptamine 131 with lithium aluminum hydride and without racemization during the process. This process provides a valuable protocol for the production of potential biologically active, enantiomerically enriched tryptamine precursors [116]. 

The 1,4 conjugate addition of HCN to a, d-unsaturated ketones has received partictUar attention, because of its selectivity in the steroid field [2S). Alkyl aluminum cyanides are used as catalysts in these reactions. Two methods have been developed which allow either thermodynamic (Equation (39 or kinetic control (Equation (40)) of the addition stereochemistry (Nagata reaction). 

This amphiphilic conjugate alkylation system has been improved to a synthetically useful level by the development of aluminum tris(2,6-diphenylphenoxide) (ATPH) as a highly efficient carbonyl stabilizer, thereby achieving a practical conjugate addition procedure. 

Malonate and related activated methylene compounds have also been used as the nucleophile in conjugate addition/Michael reactions. Taylor and co-workers have developed a new methodology that utilizes (salen)aluminum complexes such as 43 as a catalyst to effect the enantioselective conjugate addition to a,p-unsaturated ketones by a variety of nucleophiles.25 For example, nitriles, nitroalkanes, hydrazoic acids, and azides have found utility in this reaction. Additionally, cyanoacetate (42) has been demonstrated to undergo a highly enantioselective conjugate addition to 41. The Krapcho decarboxylation is then necessary to produce cyanoketone 44, an intermediate in the synthesis of enantioenriched 2,4-cw-di substituted piperidine 45. 

More recently, the same group found that alkynyl aluminum reagents undergo conjugate addition to cyclic enones in the presence of chiral Ni-bisphosphine complexes [55]. They found that the use of binol-based phosphine L9 provides high yields and enantioselectivities (up to 90% ee) for a broad range of cyclic enones. Interestingly the scope of the reaction is not limited to TMS-protected acetylides but it can be extended to aryl-acetylides (Scheme 10). 

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