Asymmetric Friedel-Crafts alkylation reactions amination

Two years after the discovery of the first asymmetric Br0nsted acid-catalyzed Friedel-Crafts alkylation, the You group extended this transformation to the use of indoles as heteroaromatic nucleophiles (Scheme 11). iV-Sulfonylated aldimines 28 are activated with the help of catalytic amounts of BINOL phosphate (5)-3k (10 mol%, R = 1-naphthyl) for the reaction with unprotected indoles 29 to provide 3-indolyl amines 30 in good yields (56-94%) together with excellent enantioselec-tivities (58 to >99% ee) [21], Antilla and coworkers demonstrated that A-benzoyl-protected aldimines can be employed as electrophiles for the addition of iV-benzylated indoles with similar efficiencies [22]. Both protocols tolerate several aryl imines and a variety of substituents at the indole moiety. In addition, one example of the use of an aliphatic imine (56%, 58% ee) was presented. 

Polysubstituted 3,4-dihydro-3-nitro-2ff-chromans are obtained from the enantioselective Michael—Michael cascade reaction of chalcone enolates and nitromethane catalyzed by bifunctional thiourea 19 (Scheme 31) (13JOC6488) and tandem Friedel—Crafts alkylation—Michael addition reaction of nitroolefin enoates and 1-methylindole promoted by Zn(OTf)2 (13S601).A squaramide-tertiary amine catalyst promotes the asymmetric sulfa-Michael—Michael cascade reaction of thiosalicylates with nitroalkene enoates which leads to polysubstituted chromans in high yields with excellent stereoselectivities (13OL1190). 

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