Asymmetric catalysis, nucleophilic addition

Chiral oxazolines developed by Albert I. Meyers and coworkers have been employed as activating groups and/or chiral auxiliaries in nucleophilic addition and substitution reactions that lead to the asymmetric construction of carbon-carbon bonds. For example, metalation of chiral oxazoline 1 followed by alkylation and hydrolysis affords enantioenriched carboxylic acid 2. Enantioenriched dihydronaphthalenes are produced via addition of alkyllithium reagents to 1-naphthyloxazoline 3 followed by alkylation of the resulting anion with an alkyl halide to give 4, which is subjected to reductive cleavage of the oxazoline moiety to yield aldehyde 5. Chiral oxazolines have also found numerous applications as ligands in asymmetric catalysis these applications have been recently reviewed, and are not discussed in this chapter. ... 

For these and similar reactions recently a variety of Lewis acidic aluminium, rare earth metals, and titanium alkoxides have been applied. Alkoxides have the additional advantage that they can be made as enantiomers using asymmetric alcohols which opens the possibility of asymmetric catalysis. Examples of asymmetric alcohols are bis-naphtols, menthol, tartaric acid derivatives [28], Other reactions comprise activation of aldehydes towards a large number of nucleophiles, addition of nucleophiles to enones, ketones, etc. 

Simultaneous publication of the iminium ion catalysed hydrophosphination of a,p-unsaturated aldehydes by Melchiorre and Cordova showed diarylprolinol silyl ether 55 was effective in the conjugate addition of diphenylphosphine 74 [117, 118], Direct transformation of the products allowed for one-pot methods for the preparation of P-phosphine alcohols 75 (72-85% yield 90-98% ee), P-phosphine oxide acids 76 (65% yield 92% ee) and 3-amino phosphines 77 (71% yield 87% ee) (Scheme 34). These reports represent the first examples of the addition of P-centred nucleophiles and the resulting highly functionalised products may well have further use in asymmetric catalysis. 

In 2004, Kobayashi et al. introduced enecarbamates as nucleophiles to asymmetric catalysis [48], The addition of enecarbamates to imines in the presence of a chiral copper complex provides access to P-amino imines which can be hydrolyzed to the corresponding p-amino carbonyl compounds [49],... 

Perlmutter P (1997) The Nucleophilic Addition/Ring Closure (NARC) Sequence for the Stereocontrolled Synthesis of Heterocycles. 190 87-101 Petersen M, Zannetti MT, Fessner W-D (1997) Tandem Asymmetric C-C Bond Formations by Enzyme Catalysis. 186 87-117... 

Enolase type activity is displayed in the efficient supramolecular catalysis of H/D exchange in malonate and pyruvate bound to macrocyclic polyamines [5.32]. Other processes that have been studied comprise for instance the catalysis of nucleophilic aromatic substitution by macrotricyclic quaternary ammonium receptors of type 21 [5.33], the asymmetric catalysis of Michael additions [5.34], the selective functionalization of doubly bound dicarboxylic acids [5.35] or the activation of reactions on substituted crown ethers by complexed metal ions [5.36]. 

Silyl enolates are useful carbon nucleophiles in the asymmetric tandem Michael addition and lactonization (Scheme 3.3). Mukaiyama recently reported that cinchona-derived ammonium phenoxides act as activators (nucleophilic catalysis), to give highly stereocontrolled products [18-20]. In a typical PTC manner, most of the... 

Recent developments in the asymmetric addition of aldehydes have been reviewed,206 as have asymmetric catalysis using metal complexes207 and nucleophile isotope effects 208... 

Activation of C=N double bonds by copper Lewis acids for nucleophilic addition has also been reported (Sch. 37) [73]. The a-imino ester 157 undergoes alkylation at the imine carbon with a variety of nucleophiles when catalyzed by copper Lewis acids. The presence of the electron-withdrawing ester group increases the reactivity of the imine and also assists in the formation of a stable five-membered chelate with the Lewis acid. Evidence for Cu(I) Lewis-acid catalysis and a tetrahedral chelate was obtained by FTIR spectroscopy, from the crystal structure of the catalyst, and from several control experiments. The authors rule out the intermediacy of a copper enol-ate in these transformations. The asymmetric alkylation of A,0-acetals with enol silanes mediated by a copper Lewis acid proceeding with high selectivity has been reported [74],... 

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