Baeyer-Villiger methods

Erythronolide B, the biosynthetic progenitor of the erythromycin antibiotics, was synthesized for the first time, using as a key step a new method for macrolactone ring closure (double activation) which had been devised specifically for this problem. Retrosynthetic simplification included the clearance of the stereocenters at carbons 10 and 11 and the disconnection of the 9,10-bond, leading to precursors A and B. Cyclic stereocontrol and especially the Baeyer-Villiger and halolactonization transforms played a major role in the retrosynthetic simplification of B which was synthesized starting from 2,4,6-trimethylphenol. 

While the oxidation of ketones by peracids (Baeyer-Villiger reaction) has been used in steroids mainly for ring cleavage, it has occasionally been applied to 20-ketopregnanes for conversion to 17-acetoxy- or hydroxyandros-tanes. The synthetic utility of this method is limited since reactive double bonds and other ketones are incompatible with the reagent. 

In the one application reported for the conversion of the 17jff-acetyl side-chain to the 17-ketone, the intermediate oxime was not isolated, but hydrolyzed in situ with acid in an overall yield of about 20 %. In the case of 17jff-acetyl-D-norandrostanes, which are particularly difficult to degrade to D-norandrostanes, the nitrite procedure proved the most convenient method. The yield is 25 %, nowhere near the much higher yield obtained by a Baeyer-Villiger reaction which, however, must be allowed to proceed for one month at 0°. ... 

Section 17.16 The oxidation of ketones with peroxy acids is called the Baeyer-Villiger oxidation and is a useful method for preparing esters. 

In miscellaneous oxidative processes of indoles, two methods for the preparation of 3-hydroxyindoles have been reported. The first approach involves initial Vilsmeier-Haack reaction of indole-2-carboxylates 176 to afford the corresponding 3-formyl analogs 177. Activation of the aldehyde with p-toluenesulfonic acid (PTSA) and Baeyer-Villiger oxidation with m-chloroperoxybenzoic acid (wi-CPBA) then affords high yields of the 3-hydroxy compounds 178 <00TL8217>... 

In contrast to the situation with the Baeyer-Villiger oxidation, synthetic chemists have a choice of both enzymatic or non-enzymatic methods for the oxidation of sulfides to optically active sulfoxides with good to excellent yields and enantiomeric excesses. 

Camell and co-workers have recently applied lipase-catalysed resolution to formally desymmetrize prochiral ketones that would not normally be considered as candidates for enzyme resolution, through enantioselective hydrolysis of the chemically prepared racemic enol acetate. " For example, an NK-2 antagonist was formally desymmetrized by this approach using Pseudomonas fluorescens hpase (PFL) (Scheme 1.40). By recychng the prochiral ketone product, up to 82 % yields of the desired (5)-enol acetate (99 % ee) could be realized. This method offers a mild alternative to methodologies such as base-catalysed asymmetric deprotonation, which requires low temperature, and biocatalytic Baeyer-Villiger oxidation, which is difficult to scale up. 

Another method for the asymmetric version of the Baeyer-Villiger reaction was presented by Lopp and coworkers in 1996 . By employing overstoichiometric quantities of Ti(OPr-t)4/DET/TBHP (1.5 eq./1.8 eq./1.5 eq.), racemic andprochiral cyclobutanones were converted to enantiomerically enriched lactones with ee values up to 75% and moderate conversions up to 40% (Scheme 171). Bolm and Beckmann used a combination of axially chiral C2-symmetric diols of the BINOL type as ligands in the zirconium-mediated Baeyer-Villiger reaction of cyclobutanone derivatives in the presence of TBHP (or CHP) as oxidant (Scheme 172) . With the in situ formed catalysts 233a-d the regioisomeric lactones were produced with moderate asymmetric inductions (6-84%). The main drawback of this method is the need of stoichiometric amounts of zirconium catalyst. 

Table 33 summarizes the results of the Baeyer-Villiger oxidation of various ketones obtained with the different methods described above. 

The Baeyer-Villiger oxidation of ketones represents a powerful synthetic method that breaks carbon-carbon bonds in an oxygen insertion process to deliver lactones. A recent comprehensive review by ten Brink et describes the different... 

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