Amide enolates from

The low reactivity of glycine enolate with unactivated alkyl halides to form a-amino acids could be overcome by stabilizing the nucleophile using m-aminoindanol-derived hippuric acid 53. This key substrate was readily prepared from commercially available azalactone 54 by a one-pot operation (85% yield, 2 steps). The lithium enolate of amide acetonide 53 with a wide range of alkyl halides proceeded in moderate yields (>60%) and excellent diastereoselectivities (>95% de). Assuming that lithium halide would facilitate the dissociation of the amide enolate from the aggregated state and thus enhance its reactivity, 4 equivalents of lithium chloride were used as additive and resulted in a 25% increase in yield (Scheme 24.11). Reactions with secondary halides... 

A similar method has been described by Badia and co-workers who used chiral amides derived from pseudoephe-drine.139 Moreover, a zirconium-mediated Claisen-aldol tandem reaction of an a,cr-dialkylated ester with several aldehydes has been reported (Scheme 39).140 After the initial Claisen condensation, zirconium enolate intermediate 92 reacts with various types of aldehydes through aldol-type reaction and subsequent lactonization, providing the corresponding pyran-2,4-diones. 

It is significant to note that the sense of asymmetric induction noted for amide enolates 157 and 158 is the same as that found for the boryl enolates derived from the chiral oxazolidone imides 146 and 145, respectively (cf. Scheme 22). The arguments presented... 

A more traveled route to the absolute configuration represented by cyclohexa-1,4-diene 8 involves Birch reduction-alkylation of benzoxazepinone 9.2.5 heterocycle is best prepared by the base-induced cyclization of the amide obtained from 2-fiuorobenzoyl chloride and (5)-pyrrolidine-2-metha-nol. o The molecular shape of enolate 10 is such that the hydrogen at the stereogenic center provides some shielding of the a-face of the enolate double bond. Thus, alkylation occurs primarily at the 3-face of 10 to give 11 as the major diastereomer. The diastereoselectivity for alkylation with methyl iodide is only 85 15, but with more sterically demanding alkyl halides such as ethyl iodide, allyl bromide, 4-bromobut-1-ene etc., diastereoselectivities are greater than 98 2. 

By contrast, lithium enolates derived from tertiary amides do react with oxiranes The diastereoselectivity in the reaction of simple amide enolates with terminal oxiranes has been addressed and found to be low (Scheme 45). The chiral bicyclic amide enolate 99 reacts with a good diastereoselectivity with ethylene oxide . The reaction of the chiral amide enolate 100 with the chiral oxiranes 101 and 102 occurs with a good diastereoselectivity (in the matched case ) interestingly, the stereochemical course is opposite to the one observed with alkyl iodides. The same reversal is found in the reaction of the amide enolate 103. By contrast, this reversal in diastereoselectivity compared to alkyl iodides was not found in the reaction of the hthium enolate 104 with the chiral oxiranes 105 and 106 °. It should be noted that a strong matched/mismatched effect occurs for enolates 100 and 103 with chiral oxiranes, and excellent diastereoselec-tivities can be achieved. 

The authors proposed a chelating transition state model to explain these results (Fig. 8.14). The thermodynamically more stable intermediate resulting from initial lithium amide addition should have the amino group on the face opposite to the bulky tert-butyl group. Due to the same steric effect, the HMPA ligand should also occupy a position on the p face. The electrophile approaches the enolate from the ot face and gives the trans product. For bulky amines, either the aza enolate does not form due to severe steric hindrance or the aza enolate is inactive for the same reason. 

Figure I. X-ray Structure of the Amide Part of the Enolate from A./V-Dimethylpropanamide14...

When R1 = H, alkylation of the enolates from both the exo- and the e/ido-tricyclic amides 4 leads to stereoselective formation of endo-5 as the major product, along with minor amounts of exo-5, and even less of monoalkylated products. The bis-enolate from the endo starting material endo-4) leads to higher yield and higher diastereoselectivity, as compared with exo-4 (see table on next page). 

Alkylation of the enolates of the amides derived from these chiral auxiliaries is a very useful method for the enantioselective preparation of chiral 2-alkylalkanoic acid derivatives. 

In contrast, aldol condensation with (Z)- and (E)-chlorobis(eyclopenladienyl)-/irconium enolates results in frj7/iro-diastcrcoselcction regardless of the geometry of the enolate. -3 These enolates are prepared from lithium enolates by metal exchange with Cp,ZrCU at —78°. The effect is particularly marked with amide enolates (equation II). 

Numerous examples of the preparation of tetramic acids from N-acylated amino acid esters by a Dieckmann-type cyclocondensation have been reported (Entries 7-9, Table 15.4). Deprotonated 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds and unactivated amide enolates can be used as carbon nucleophiles. In most of these examples, the ester that acts as electrophile also links the substrate to the support, so that cyclization and cleavage from the support occur simultaneously. The preparation of five-membered cyclic imi-des is discussed in Section 13.8. 

The 1,4-conjugate addition of ester enolates to a, 3-enones was first reported by Kohler in 1910,138a c as an anomalous Reformatsky reaction, but chemoselectivity was dependent on the structure of the a,(3-enone and restricted to bromozinc enolates obtained from either a-bromoisobutyrate or bromomalonate esters (Scheme 66).138d,e Further evaluation, with lithio ester enolates and lithio amide enolate additions, has resulted in identification of four factors that affect the chemoselectivity and diastereoselectivity of additions to a, 3-enones.139 These factors are (a) enolate geometry, (b) acceptor geometry, (c) steric bulk of the -substituent on the acceptor enone and (d) reaction conditions. In general, under kinetic reaction conditions (-78 °C), ( )-ester enolates afford preferential 1,2-addition products while (Z)-ester enolates afford substantial amounts of 1,4-addition products however, 1,2 to 1,4 equilibration occurs at 25 C in the presence of HMPA. The stereostructure of the 1,4-adducts is dependent on the initial enolate structure for example, with ( )-enones, (Z)-ester enolates afford anti adducts, while (E)-ester enolates afford syn adducts (Scheme 54). In contrast, amide enolates show a modest preference for anti diastereomer formation. 

Most of the information on simple a-arylation reactions on the enolates of amides comes from a single study by Rossi and Alonso.128 They showed that with acetamide itself no arylation reactions took place, presumably on account of ionization of the N—H rather than the C—H bond and the observation that the... 

HSAB is particularly useful for assessing the reactivity of ambident nucleophiles or electrophiles, and numerous examples of chemoselective reactions given throughout this book can be explained with the HSAB principle. Hard electrophiles, for example alkyl triflates, alkyl sulfates, trialkyloxonium salts, electron-poor car-benes, or the intermediate alkoxyphosphonium salts formed from alcohols during the Mitsunobu reaction, tend to alkylate ambident nucleophiles at the hardest atom. Amides, enolates, or phenolates, for example, will often be alkylated at oxygen by hard electrophiles whereas softer electrophiles, such as alkyl iodides or electron-poor alkenes, will preferentially attack amides at nitrogen and enolates at carbon. 

Asymmetric alkylation of dimclhoxyphosphoryl-AH 1 -(.S,)- -mclhylbenz i]acet-amide enolates has been reported 65 The synthesis of both stereoisomers from the same source of chirality has been achieved by changing the equivalents of LDA. 

Analogous results obtain in intermolecular addition of alkyl radicals to unsaturated amides. Thus addition of n-hexyl radical to the unsaturated amide 4 derived from (S,S)-1 results in four products, two by addition a to the ketone and two by addition a to the amide enol. The former products are formed with slight selectivity, (60 40), but the latter products (5) are formed in ratio of 93 7.3... 

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