Amino acid esters aldehydes

Sodium triacetoxyborohydride is an alternative to NaBH3CN for reductive amination. This reagent can be used with a wide variety of aldehydes or ketones with primary and secondary amines, including aniline derivatives.93 This reagent has been used successfully to alkylate amino acid esters.94... 

Another domino process, designed by Polt and coworkers [16], deals with the consecutive transformation of an in situ-prepared aldehyde to give 3-amino allylic alcohols 7-31 from 3-amino acids. When the 3-amino acid ester derivative 7-29 is sequentially treated with iBu5Al2H and vinyl magnesium bromide, a 3 2 mixture of the allylic alcohol derivatives 7-30 is obtained in 60% yield, which can be hydrolyzed to give 7-31 (Scheme 7.10). 

Possible racemisation of imines, derivatives of amino acids and R(—)-myrtenal, has been examined by Dufrasne et al.1 After 72 h, no significant effect on chiral purity was observed. For imines being derivatives of chiral primary amines and the a-substituted 8-keto-aldehydes, no evidence of epimerisation has been indicated by the NMR measurements.3 For a series of imines, being derivatives of amino acids or amino acid esters and (R)-BINOL reagents, Chin et al.5 have tested the possibility of epimerization under experiment conditions. It was shown that R S ratio has changed only slightly, and after 24 h, the difference was lower than 10%. 

O Donnell imine 23 with various aldehydes, giving P-hydroxy-a-amino acid esters 44 with high enantiomeric excess,1401 as shown in Scheme 15. 

Parmar et al have developed a method for resolving racemic mixtures of a variety of natural and nonnatural amino acids using the ethyl ester of the amino acid protected at the amino position hy the formation of a Schiff base with an aromatic aldehyde such as /)-chlorobenzaldehyde. Both chymotrypsin and Lip such as porcine Lip gave good yields of the L-amino acid which precipitates out of solution as the amino acid ester released from the imine is cleaved by the hydrolase. 

Another possible mechanism for the racemization of amino acid esters involves the in situ, transient, formation of Schiff s bases by reaction of the amine group of an amino acid ester with an aldehyde. Using this approach, DKR of the methyl esters of proline 5 and pipecolic acid 6 was achieved using lipase A from C. ant-arclica as the enantioselective hydrolytic enzyme and acetaldehyde as the racemiz-ing agent (Scheme 2.4). Interestingly, the acetaldehyde was released in situ from vinyl butanoate, which acted as the acyl donor, in the presence of triethylamine. The use of other reaction additives was also investigated. Yields of up to 97% and up to 97% e.e. were obtained [6]. 

Attempts to synthesize C-terminal peptide aldehydes using other reductive techniques are less successful. 24"29 The reduction of a-amino acid esters with sodium amalgam and lithium aluminum hydride reduction of tosylated a-aminoacyldimethylpyrazoles resulted in poor yields. 26,29 The Rosemond reduction of TV-phthaloyl amino acid chlorides is inconvenient because the aldehyde is sensitive to hydrazine hydrate that is used to remove the phthaloyl group. 27 28 jV -Z-Protected a-aminoacylimidazoles, which are reduced to the corresponding aldehydes using lithium aluminum hydride, are extremely moisture sensitive and readily decomposed. 25 The catalytic reduction of mixed carbonic/carboxylic acid anhydrides, prepared from acylated a-amino acids, leads to poor reproducibility and low yields. 24 The major problems associated with these techniques are overreduction, racemization, and poor yields. 

Amino acid and peptide aldehydes with one to three residues have been prepared successfully using diisobutylaluminum hydride. Z-Protected amino aldehydes such as Z-Leu-H, Z-Phe-H, Z-Cys(Bzl)-H, Z-Pro-H have been synthesized with little or no racemization (Table l). 5 The diisobutylaluminum hydride reduction can be used with both peptide esters and Z amino acid esters. However, the Boc protecting group is less stable when refluxed with diisobutylaluminum hydride, thus resulting in its loss while reducing Boc-Ala-OMe or Boc-Ser(OBzl)-OMe. 13 ... 

LLB, LiOH, and H2O promoted the direct aldol reaction of glycinate Schiff bases 12 with aldehydes 3, providing access to p-hydroxy-a-amino acid esters 13 (Scheme 4,bottom) [7],... 

Keywords aromatic aldehyde, primary amine, malonic acid monoethyl ester, Rodionov reaction, microwave irradiation, / -aryl-/ -amino acid ester, ethyl cinna-mate... 

The Pictet-Spengler cyclization of iminium salts, generated in situ from 3-indolyl)ethyl substituted amino acid esters 257 and various aldehydes, has been found to proceed with high stereoselectivity (up to 98.5 1.5)392. 

Several transformations of 6 and 7 were also conducted successfully [6, 7]. For example, oxidation of the aldehyde group of the N-protected amino aldehydes 7 and subsequent standard transformations lead to non-proteinogenic optically active a-amino acid esters [7]. 

In conclusion, the organocatalytic asymmetric a-amination of aldehydes and ketones using proline as catalyst is a new and attractive access to optically active N-protected a-amino aldehydes and ketones and related derivatives, e.g. a-amino acid esters. 

The selected example by Sim and Ganesan [19] reported the design of a 3078-member discrete thiohydantoin library, prepared without purification of intermediates, with a three-step synthesis, which is shown in Figure 7.2. Nine amino acid esters were reacted with eighteen aromatic aldehydes to produce imines, which were reduced by sodium triacetoxyborohydride. The resulting amines were treated with nineteen isothiocyanates in the presence of triethylamine (TEA), producing intermediate isoureas, which eventually cyclized to the final thiohydantoins. 

Hypothesizing that primary amine catalysts, due to their reduced steric requirements, might be suitable for the activation of ketones, we studied various salts of a-amino acid esters. (For pioneering use of primary amine salts in asymmetric iminium catalysis involving aldehyde substrates, see Ishihara and Nakano 2005 Sakakura et al. 2006 for the use of preformed imines of a, 3-unsaturated aldehydes and amino acid esters in diastereoselective Michael additions, see Hashimot et al. 1977.) We have developed a new class of catalytic salts, in which both the cation and the anion are chiral. In particular, valine ester phosphate salt 35 proved to be an active catalyst for the transfer hydrogenation of a variety of a, 3-unsaturated ketones 36 with commercially available Hantzsch ester 11 to give saturated ketones 37 in excellent enantiose-lectivities (Scheme 28 Martin and List 2006). 

Metal rf-inline complexes with various transition metals [1-10] and lanthanides [11,12] are well known in the literature. Early transition metal if-imine complexes have attracted attention as a-amino carbanion equivalents. Zirconium rf-imine complexes, or zirconaaziridines (the names describe different resonance structures), are readily accessible and have been applied in organic synthesis in view of the umpolung [13] of their carbons whereas imines readily react with nucleophiles, zirconaaziridines undergo the insertion of electrophilic reagents. Accessible compounds include heterocycles and nitrogen-containing products such as allylic amines, diamines, amino alcohols, amino amides, amino am-idines, and amino acid esters. Asymmetric syntheses of allylic amines and a-amino acid esters have even been carried out. The mechanism of such transformations has implications not only for imine complexes, but also for the related aldehyde and ketone complexes [14-16]. The synthesis and properties of zirconaaziridines and their applications toward organic transformations will be discussed in this chapter. 

Zirconaaziridines react with unsaturated C-C bonds such as (1) olefins and acetylenes [20], and with unsaturated C-X bonds such as (2) aldehydes and imines [20], (3) heterocumulenes [21,43,49],and (4) carbonates [21,22,43,50] (Scheme 5). The products generated upon workup are a-functionalized amines. Asymmetric transformations can be carried out when a chiral zirconaaziridine or inserting reagent is used optically active allylic amines and amino acid esters have been prepared, and the details of these transformations will be discussed. 

---