Aryl allylic sulfoxides

The reaction of the anion of an aryl allyl sulfoxide with benzaldehyde can take place via an a or y attack. The a attack leads to a product with three stercogcnic centers (four possible diastereomers) whereas the y attack results in a product which has only two stereogenie centers and geometric isomerism is possible. 

The thermal racemization of optically active aryl allyl sulfoxides ArS(0)CHjCH=CH2 is orders of magnitude faster, and has a much lower activation energy, than that of aryl alkyl sulfoxides ArS(0)R (Bickart et ai, 1968). The reason is that the presence of the allyl group permits the sulfoxide to equilibrate with the isomeric, achiral sulfenate ester by a concerted, cyclic process (89) for whichis only about 20 kcal moM.The rates of racemiz-... 

Deprotonation of allyl sulfoxides with LDA generates the corresponding allylic carbanions, which are able to add to aldehydes. Addition of the anion of aryl allyl sulfoxides to aromatic aldehydes proceeds... 

Asymmetric ene reaction of N-sulfinylcarbamatesf The ability of Lewis acids to promote ene reactions (11,413,414 12,389) is useful for asymmetric reactions. Thus the SnCU-promoted reaction of chiral N-sulfinylcarbamates (1) with alkenes results in thermally unstable adducts (2) in 65-91% yield. Use of trans-2-phenylcyclohexanol (13,244) or 8-phenylmenthol as the source of chirality results in high diastereoselective induction in generation of the new carbon to sulfur bond (usually >95 5). This reaction is applicable to both (E)- and (Z)-alkenes, but the former react more readily. These ene adducts can be transformed into optically active allylic alcohols (4) by N-alkylation and conversion to an aryl allylic sulfoxide (3), which undergoes rearrangement in the presence of a thiophile (piperidine) to 4, with retention of configuration at carbon imparted in the ene reaction. The overall process effects enantioselective allylic oxidation of an alkene with retention of the original position of the double bond. 

Deprotonation of allylic aryl sulfoxides leads to allylic carbanions which react with aldehyde electrophiles at the carbon atom a and also y to sulfur . With benzaldehyde at — 10 °C y-alkylation predominates , whereas with aliphatic aldehydes at — 78 °C in the presence of HMPA a-alkylation predominates . When the a-alkylated products, which themselves are allylic sulfoxides, undergo 2,3-sigmatropic rearrangement, the rearranged compounds (i.e., allylic sulfenate esters) can be trapped with thiophiles to produce overall ( )-l,4-dihydroxyalkenes (equation 24). When a-substituted aldehydes are used as electrophiles, formation of syn-diols 27 occurs in 40-67% yields with diastereoselectivities ranging from 2-28 1 (equation 24) . ... 

The rearrangement of allylic sulfoxides to allylic sulfenates was first studied in connection with the mechanism of racemization of allyl aryl sulfoxides.272 Although the allyl sulfoxide structure is strongly favored at equilibrium, rearrangement through the achiral allyl sulfenate provides a low-energy pathway for racemization. 

The activation parameters of the pyramidal inversion have been determined for various dialkyl, diaryl, and alkyl aryl sulfoxides. They vary between 35 and 42 keal/mol for AH, and -8 and +4 cal/(mol-K) for AS. These values indicate that, in most cases, the thermal stereomutation of sulfoxides occurs at a significant rate only at about 200 °C. There are a few exceptions, such as benzyl and allyl sulfoxides, whose racemization is raised at 130-150 and 50-70 °C, respectively. 

While cuprate addition to chiral 2-acetoxy-3-butenyl aryl sulfoxides gave exclusively the (-E)-allylic sulfoxides, addition to chiral butadienyl sulfoxide provided a mixture of E- and Z-isomers with a preference for the Z-isomer68. 

Allyl sulfoxide systems appropriate for a transformation to allylic alcohols can also be generated by other preparative methods, e.g. by isomerization of aryl vinyl sulfoxides. Such an isomerization occurs in connection with a Knoevenagel reaction of (10) with aldehydes leading finally to y-hydroxy-a,3-unsatu-rated systems (11), which can easily be transformed into a,3-unsaturated y-lactones (12 Scheme 17). ... 

Hoffmann has used an isomerization of readily available aryl vinyl sulfoxides, which can be obtained in optically active form, to study the possibility of generating optically active allyl alcohols by employing chirality transfer from sulfur to carbon. While this synthetic route (Scheme 18) to allylic alcohols generally works well and gives good yields, the optical yields which could be obtained are only satisfactory in some cases, e.g. (/ )-(Z)-sulfoxide (13) gave the (S)-(+)-octenol (14) with greater than 80% optical purity, whereas the (/ )-( 5-isomer (15) yielded only 29% of the (f )-(-)-enantiomer (16 Scheme 19). 

By our usual definition, benzylic and allylic sulfoxides are not aromatic. Certainly, they are not conjugated to the aryl group. However, their behavior is more related to the aromatic sulfoxides than the other aliphatic compounds. Perhaps this is because the observed a-cleavage chemistry is as related to the benzyl chromophore as it is to the sulfoxide. Nonetheless, these reactions were among the first to be studied historically, and they set precedent for the thinking of authors working in conjugated systems. 

Lithiated allylic sulfoxides may be a-alkylated and the resulting products subjected to [2,3]-sigmatropic rearrangement induced by a thiophile to give allylic alcohols (eq 43). In contrast, alkenyl aryl sulfoxides produce a-lithiated species which are alkylated with Mel or PhCHO in good yields (eq 44). LDA has also been used to metalate allylic and propargylic selenides as weU as aryl vinyl selenides. ... 

In 1950, Cope and coworkers48 unsuccessfully attempted to use the well-known Meisenheimer rearrangement of N-allylamine oxides to 0-allylhydroxylamines49 in performing the formally analogous rearrangements of allyl aryl sulfoxides to allyl arenesulfenates and of allyl aryl sulfones to allyl arenesulfinates (equations 11-13). 

In contrast to the allylic sulfenates mentioned so far, cinnamyl trichloromethanesulfenate (9), prepared by the usual method, can be isolated and is relatively stable. Furthermore, its rearrangement to cinnamyl trichloromethyl sulfoxide (i.e., without allylic isomerization, equation 7), proceeds at a relatively slow rate (in CC14 at 80.0 °C, k = 3.90 x 10 5s 1). This result also contrasts with the observation mentioned earlier that cinnamyl arenesulfinate rearranges to a-phenylallyl aryl sulfone33,34. Similar behavior has been detected for y, y-dimethylallyl ester 11 which undergoes thermal isomerization to sulfoxide 12 (equation 8)36-38. 

In summary, the evidence described above demonstrates three main mechanistic features of the rearrangement of allylic sulfenates to sulfoxides (1) spontaneous and wholly concerted [2,3]-sigmatropic shift of allyl or a-substituted allyl esters (7 a, b) at one extreme (2) complete stability of the y-aryl and y,y-dialkyl substituted allyl sulfenates as well as... 

In order to account for the unusually facile thermal racemization of optically active allyl p-tolyl sulfoxide (15 R = p-Tol) whose rate of racemization is orders of magnitude faster than that of alkyl aryl or diaryl sulfoxides as a result of a comparably drastically reduced AH (22kcalmol- ), Mislow and coworkers44 suggested a cyclic (intramolecular) mechanism in which the chiral sulfoxide is in mobile equilibrium with the corresponding achiral sulfenate (equation 10). 

Similar to the well-known thio-Claisen rearrangement of allyl aryl sulfides211 and sulfonium salts212, the thio-Claisen rearrangement of allyl aryl sulfoxides has also been reported213. For example, heating of allyl 2-naphthyl sulfoxide (147) at 120 °C for 2h in dimethylformamide resulted in quantitative isomerization to the dihydronaphthothio-... 

---