Aromatic compounds ambident nucleophiles

Palladium(0)-catalyzed allylation of nucleophiles (the Tsuji-Trost reaction) is a versatile synthetic method that has gained immense popularity in recent years. Rarely applied to ambident nucleophilic aromatic heterocycles before 1991, the Tsuji-Trost reaction has been extensively used in the chemistry of these compounds since 1991. Two factors have played decisive roles in this increased interest in the Pd(0)-catalyzed allylation of such heterocyclic rings one is that, unlike other alkylation procedures, the Pd(0)-catalyzed allylation can sometimes give the product of thermodynamic control when applied to ambident nucleophiles and the second is that the Tsuji-Trost allylation has become one of the standard methods for synthesizing carbanucleosides, which are important antiviral compounds (93MI1, 93MI2). Of course, the double bond of an allylic system can be modified in different directions, thus adding versatility to the Tsuji-Trost reaction. 

Ambident anions are mesomeric, nucleophilic anions which have at least two reactive centers with a substantial fraction of the negative charge distributed over these cen-ters ) ). Such ambident anions are capable of forming two types of products in nucleophilic substitution reactions with electrophilic reactants . Examples of this kind of anion are the enolates of 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds, phenolate, cyanide, thiocyanide, and nitrite ions, the anions of nitro compounds, oximes, amides, the anions of heterocyclic aromatic compounds e.g. pyrrole, hydroxypyridines, hydroxypyrimidines) and others cf. Fig. 5-17. 

A mechanism of this type permits substitution of certain aromatic and ahphatic nitro compounds by a variety of nucleophiles. These reactions were discovered as the result of efforts to explain the mechanistic basis for high-yield carbon alkylation of the 2-nitropropane anion by p-nitrobenzyl chloride. p-Nitrobenzyl bromide and iodide and benzyl halides that do not contain a nitro substituent give mainly the unstable oxygen alkylation product with this ambident anion ... 

Azlactone is commonly utilized as a precursor of a-quatemary a-amino acids and various heterocyclic compounds [28-30]. Because the enol form of azlactone has aromatic character, facile deprotonation from the C4-position affords the corresponding enolate under the influence of various bases. Interestingly, the enolate ion shows ambident reactivity and attacks the electrophile at either the C4-position (a-addition) or the C2-position (y-addition), thus acting as an a-amino enolate or an acyl anion equivalent, respectively (Fig. 1). The site-selectivity associated with this enolate seems to be heavily dependent on its stereoelectronic characteristics, and introduction of a bulky substituent into the Cl- or C4-position suppresses the nucleophilicity at the particular position. 

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