Amides, from acid derivatives with ketene

Photodriven reactions of Fischer carbenes with alcohols produces esters, the expected product from nucleophilic addition to ketenes. Hydroxycarbene complexes, generated in situ by protonation of the corresponding ate complex, produced a-hydroxyesters in modest yield (Table 15) [103]. Ketals,presumably formed by thermal decomposition of the carbenes, were major by-products. The discovery that amides were readily converted to aminocarbene complexes [104] resulted in an efficient approach to a-amino acids by photodriven reaction of these aminocarbenes with alcohols (Table 16) [105,106]. a-Alkylation of the (methyl)(dibenzylamino)carbene complex followed by photolysis produced a range of racemic alanine derivatives (Eq. 26). With chiral oxazolidine carbene complexes optically active amino acid derivatives were available (Eq. 27). Since both enantiomers of the optically active chromium aminocarbene are equally available, both the natural S and unnatural R amino acid derivatives are equally... 

Enolphosphate phosphonates derived from perfluoroalkanoylphosphonates have a number of synthetic uses. Reactions of such compounds with nucleophiles such as amines or alcohols in the presence of catalytic amounts of tetrabutylammonium fluoride (tbaf) gave a,j5-unsaturated perfluorocarboxylic acid derivatives, presumably via a ketene type intermediate (equation 94) When a primary amine was employed as the nucleophile a,j -unsaturated amides were formed, which could be converted into fluorinated pyrimidi-nones by treatment with urea. On the other hand, butylcopper(I) reagent reduces such... 

The intermediacy of ketenes in some enamine acylation reactions using acid chlorides was described above (386,387). Direct addition of ketene to enamines was studied simultaneously by several groups (414-420). The initially formed aminocyclobutanone products could be isolated in some instances, depending on the substitution of the initial enamine. Opening to give either the acylated enamine or the alternative vinylogous amide was found to occur spontaneously or on heating, particularly in adducts derived from enamines with an olefinic proton. 

As the only general method for this transformation at present is catalytic hydrogenation, the potential of this procedure is obvious. Appropriate N-methyl-a,j8-unsaturated amides undergo /3 -metallation on treatment with Bu Li-TMEDA to provide dianions (e.g. 214), which are useful for the further homologation of these molecules. (Z)-Cinnamic acid amides (216), which are not easy to prepare, have been obtained by rearrangement of anions (215) that themselves are derived from the [Stt + 2-n-] adducts formed between azahep-tafulvenes and monosubstituted ketens. ... 

A large variety of propionic acid esters and higher homologs having a chiral alcohol moiety have been used in additions to aldehydes [56, 57]. It turned out, however, that the lithium enolates result in only moderate simple diastereoselectivity and induced stereoselectivity, in contrast with the corresponding boron, titanium, tin, or zirconium enolates and silyl ketene acetals, with which stereoselectivity is excellent. The same feature has been observed in enolates derived from chiral amides and oxazolidinones, as... 

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