Azomethine ylide cycloadditions intramolecular

During the synthetic efforts of Heathcock and co-workers toward the complex marine alkaloid sarain-A (Scheme 3.80), he outlined an elegant intramolecular, azomethine ylide cycloaddition, as one of the key stages in the construction of the central core (76). Of the generation methods known for azomethine ylides, thermolysis of aziridines was selected in this instance. The azomethine ylide... 

The reaction mechanism proposed for the LiBr/NEta induced azomethine ylide cycloadditions to a,p-unsaturated carbonyl acceptors is illustrated in Scheme 11.10. The ( , )-ylides, reversibly generated from the imine esters, interact with acceptors under frontier orbital control, and the lithium atom of ylides coordinates with the carbonyl oxygen of the acceptors. Either through a direct cycloaddition (path a) or a sequence of Michael addition-intramolecular cyclization (path b), the cycloadducts are produced with endo- and regioselectivity. Path b is more likely, since in some cases Michael adducts are isolated. 

Although the first attempts at asymmetric azomethine ylide cycloadditions were reported by Padwa s group (92), the acyclic azomethine ylides chosen, bearing an a-chiral alkyl substituent on the nitrogen, showed poor diastereoselectivities (93,94). When the chiral center is fixed in a cyclic structure (95) or when chirality is introduced in an intramolecular cycloaddition system (96-98), high selectivities have been accomplished. There are only a few examples known of asymmetric cycloadditions of achiral azomethine ylides to chiral dipolarophiles where cyclic azomethine ylides (99,100) or cyclic chiral dipolarophiles (94) were used. 

Unactivated dipolarophiles readily participate in intramolecular azomethine ylide cycloadditions with a more reactive azomethine ylide. Thus, flash vacuum pyrolysis of aziridine (113) afforded a 67% yield of the 5,5-fused bicyclic pyrrolidine (Scheme 34).59 A singly stabilized azomethine ylide was the apparent intermediate. Similarly, cyclization of the azomethine ylides derived from (114a-c) gave the corresponding cw-fused 6,6-bicyclic pyrrolidines in 69%, 26% and 16% yield, respectively the original double bond stereochemistry was retained in the latter two cases. 

Intramolecular azomethine ylide cycloaddition to the C—O double bond of an aldehyde was reported in 197369 and cycloaddition to the C—C double bond was first reported in 1975.70 Competition between 1,1- and 1,3-cycloaddition is observed in intramolecular reactions, although intermolecular reactions give only 1,3-cycloaddition. Photolysis of 2//-azirines is one generation method of nitrile ylides applicable to intramolecular cycloaddition.70 Another method involves the base-catalyzed 1,3-elimination of hydrogen halide from alkenyl imidoyl halides. Still other procedures involve thermolytic and photolytic cycloreversions of oxazolinones and dihydrooxazaphospholes. 

While virtually all of the research described above has focused on the inter-molecular cycloaddition of azomethine ylides, the intramolecular process holds considerable promise for the synthesis of polycyclic natural products. The Pfaltz group reported an intramolecular catalytic asymmetric cyclization of aryl iminoesters 112 using a complex of silver acetate with PHOX type ligand 100 (Scheme 2.29,... 

Gamer, P.P., Cox, P.B., Klippenstein, S.J., Youngs, W.J., and McConville, D.B. (1994) Tether-mediated stereocontrol in intramolecular azomethine ylide cycloadditions. Journal of Organic Chemistry, 59, 6510-6511. 

Oxazoles have also been used to generate azomethine ylides in intramolecular [3+2] cycloadditions with alkynes <2000JA5401 1 he nucleophilic attack of cyanide ion on the oxazolinium salt 75 led to the formation of azomethine... 

Some examples of exojendo diastereoselection in intramolecular azomethine ylide cycloadditions are known215, 262,279 29where the azomethine ylide is generated by differing procedures. The intramolecular nature of the process allows the reaction to occur on unactivated alkenes that generally are too sluggish to react in an intermolecular way215,286. 

Scheme 10-37 An intramolecular azomethine ylide cycloaddition can access the 3,8-diazabicy-clo[3.2.1 loctane structure of the bioxalomycins.

Y.-D. Gong, S. Nadji, M. M. Olmstead, M. J. Kurth, Solid-phase synthesis Intramolecular azomethine ylide cycloaddition ( proline) and carbanilide cyclization (—> hydantoin) reactions. J. Org. Chem. 1998, 63, 3081-3086. 

Another example of a microwave-assisted 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition using azomethine ylides and a dipolarophile was the intramolecular reaction reported for the synthesis of hexahydrochromeno[4,3-fo]pyrrolidine 105 [70]. It was the first example of a solvent-free microwave-assisted intramoleciflar 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of azomethine ylides, obtained from aromatic aldehyde 102 and IM-substituted glycinate 103 (Scheme 36). The dipole was generated in situ (independently from the presence of a base like TEA) and reacted directly with the dipolarophile present within the same molecifle. The intramolecu-... 

Synthetic work commenced with evaluation of an azomethine ylide dipole for the proposed intramolecular dipolar cycloaddition. A number of methods exist for the preparation of azomethine ylides, including, inter alia, transformations based on fluoride-mediated desilylation of a-silyliminium species, electrocyclic ring opening of aziridines, and tautomerization of a-amino acid ester imines [37]. In particular, the fluoride-mediated desilylation of a-silyliminium species, first reported by Vedejs in 1979 [38], is among the most widely used methods for the generation of non-stabilized azomethine ylides (Scheme 1.6). 

The feasibility of azomethine ylide generation from 7 and intramolecular dipolar cycloaddition was examined under a variety of conditions. For example, activation of vinylogous amide 71 with BzOTf [41] followed by desilylation with TBAT led to complex mixtures of products. Likewise, using MeOTf as the activating agent yielded similar results. Significantly, none of these protocols furnished the desired pyrrolidine 73. Only decomposition of the silylpyridinone to form unidentified products was observed, despite the fact that quantitative O-methylation of the... 

Scheme 6.186 Intramolecular azomethine ylide-alkene/alkyne [3+2] cycloadditions.

Highly stereoselective intramolecular cycloadditions of unsaturated N-substituted azomethine ylides have been conducted under microwave irradiation. Oritani reported that a mixture of the aldehyde 137 and N-methyl- or N-benzylglycine ethyl ester (138) on the surface of silica gel, irradiated under microwaves for 15 min, generated azomethine ylides 139 that subsequently underwent in situ intramolecular cycloadditions to afford the corresponding tricyclic compounds 140 in 79 and 81% yield, respectively (Scheme 9.42) [93],... 

The photocycloaddition of aliphatic and aromatic aldehydes with 2,4,5-trimethyloxazole (131) gave bicyclic oxetanes 132 in almost quantitative yields hydrolitic cleavage led selectively to erytro a-amino-P-hydroxy methyl ketones 133 <00CC589>. The oxazolium salt 134 was converted to the azomethine ylide 136 via electrocyclic ring opening of the oxazoline 135. Intramolecular cycloaddition afforded 137 in 66% overall yield which was transformed into the aziridinomitosene derivative 138 . 

A 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of the nonstabilized azomethine ylide 6 is the key step in a three-component reaction. The azomethine ylides were generated from (2-azaallyl)stannanes or (2-azaallyl)silanes 5 through an intramolecular iV-alkylation/demetallation cascade. The ylides underwent cycloaddition reactions with dipolarophiles yielding indolizidine derivatives 7-9 <2004JOC1919> (Scheme 1). 

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