Enolates, boron diastereoselectivity

Diastereoselective Aldol Condensation with Boron Enolates... 

Ideal starting materials for the preparation of. svn-aldols are ketones that can be readily deprotonated to give (Z)-enolates which are known to give predominantly yyu-adducts. Thus, when (5,)-1-(4-methylphenyl)sulfonyl-2-(l-oxopropyl)pyrrolidine is treated with dibutylboryl triflate in the presence of diisopropylethylamine, predominant generation of the corresponding (Z)-boron enolate occurs. The addition of this unpurified enolate to 2-methylpropanal displays not only simple diastereoselectivity, as indicated by a synjanti ratio of 91 9, but also high induced stereoselectivity, since the ratio of syn- a/.vyn-lb is >97 3. 

Substrate-induced diastereoselectivity is provided by the chlorotitanium enolate of 14a,b47b and the boron enolate of ketone 15S3 to give predominantly. wt-aldols. 

The addition of boron enolates to imincs is useful for the construction of anti-fi-amino acid derivatives8. On the other hand, it is possible to control the direction of the diastereoselective addition of enolates from (A)-phenyl alkanethioates with imines9. 

The boron enolates derived from (5)-4-silylated 2,2-dimethyl-l,3-dioxan-5-one undergo anti diastereoselective aldol reactions which provide access to protected oxopolyols of high stereochemical integrity <96SYN1095>. 

Scheme 2.6 shows some examples of the use of chiral auxiliaries in the aldol and Mukaiyama reactions. The reaction in Entry 1 involves an achiral aldehyde and the chiral auxiliary is the only influence on the reaction diastereoselectivity, which is very high. The Z-boron enolate results in syn diastereoselectivity. Entry 2 has both an a-methyl and a (3-benzyloxy substituent in the aldehyde reactant. The 2,3-syn relationship arises from the Z-configuration of the enolate, and the 3,4-anti stereochemistry is determined by the stereocenters in the aldehyde. The product was isolated as an ester after methanolysis. Entry 3, which is very similar to Entry 2, was done on a 60-kg scale in a process development investigation for the potential antitumor agent (+)-discodermolide (see page 1244). 

The synthesis of the C(17)-C(24) segment also began with a diastereoselective boron enolate aldol addition. The adduct was protected and converted to an aldehyde in sequence H. The terminal diene unit was installed using a y-silylallyl chromium reagent, which generates a (3-hydroxysilane. Peterson elimination using KH then gave the Z-diene. 

Usually, (Z)-boron enolates can be prepared by treating /V-acyl oxazolidones with di-K-butylboron triflate and triethylamine in CH2CI2 at 78°C, and the enolate then prepared can easily undergo aldol reaction at this temperature to give a, vy -aldol product with more than 99% diastereoselectivity (Scheme 3-4). In this example, the boron counterion plays an important role in the stereoselective aldol reaction. Triethylamine is more effective than di-wo-propylethyl amine in the enolization step. Changing boron to lithium leads to a drop in stereoselectivity. 

Access to the corresponding enantiopure hydroxy esters 133 and 134 of smaller fragments 2 with R =Me employed a highly stereoselective (ds>95%) Evans aldol reaction of allenic aldehydes 113 and rac-114 with boron enolate 124 followed by silylation to arrive at the y-trimethylsilyloxy allene substrates 125 and 126, respectively, for the crucial oxymercuration/methoxycarbonylation process (Scheme 19). Again, this operation provided the desired tetrahydrofurans 127 and 128 with excellent diastereoselectivity (dr=95 5). Chemoselective hydrolytic cleavage of the chiral auxiliary, chemoselective carboxylic acid reduction, and subsequent diastereoselective chelation-controlled enoate reduction (133 dr of crude product=80 20, 134 dr of crude product=84 16) eventually provided the pure stereoisomers 133 and 134 after preparative HPLC. 

A further step towards improved selectivity in aldol condensations is found in the work of David A. Evans. The work of Evans [3a] [14] is based in some early observations from Meyers laboratory [15] and the fact that boron enolates may be readily prepared under mild conditions from ketones and dialkylboron triflates [16]. Detailed investigations with Al-propionylpyrrolidine (31) indicate that the enolisation process (LDA, THE) affords the enolate 32 with at least 97% (Z>diastereoselection (Scheme 9.8). Finally, the observation that the inclusion of potential chelating centres enhance aldol diastereoselection led Evans to study the boron enolates 34 of A(-acyl-2-oxazolidones (33), which allow not only great diastereoselectivity (favouring the 5yn-isomer) in aldol condensations, but offer a possible solution to the problem of enantioselective total syntheses (with selectivities greater than 98%) of complex organic molecules (see below, 9.3.2), by using a recyclisable chiral auxiliary. 

Catalyzed aldol additions do not generally proceed with high diastereoselectivity at ambient temperature. Improved stereoselectivity can be achieved by using preformed, diastereomerically pure enolates at low temperatures (Entry 5, Table 7.2). This strategy enables the solid-phase preparation of stereochemically defined polyketides. On cross-linked polystyrene, the observed diastereoselectivity in the addition of boron enolates to aldehydes is the same as that in the homogeneous phase reaction [14,18]. 

Asymmetric Mannich reactions provide useful routes for the synthesis of optically active p-amino ketones or esters, which are versatile chiral building blocks for the preparation of many nitrogen-containing biologically important compounds [1-6]. While several diastereoselective Mannich reactions with chiral auxiliaries have been reported, very little is known about enantioselective versions. In 1991, Corey et al. reported the first example of the enantioselective synthesis of p-amino acid esters using chiral boron enolates [7]. Yamamoto et al. disclosed enantioselective reactions of imines with ketene silyl acetals using a Bronsted acid-assisted chiral Lewis acid [8]. In all cases, however, stoichiometric amounts of chiral sources were needed. Asymmetric Mannich reactions using small amounts of chiral sources were not reported before 1997. This chapter presents an overview of catalytic asymmetric Mannich reactions. 

Boron enolates of a-benzyloxy esters.1 The triflate 1 converts alkyl benzyloxy-acetates (2) into the boron enolate, which readily undergoes aldol reactions with high yyn-diastereoselectivity. Somewhat higher syn-selectivity obtains with dicyclopen-tylboryl triflate, whereas use of LDA results in slight anti-selectivity (synlanti=34-37 66-63). Diisopropylethylamine is essential for the aldol reaction. Syn-3 is re-... 

Paquette et al. start with the bis-vinylogation of the same compound 29 [14], by Wittig-Horner reaction, reduction, and oxidation (Scheme 5). For the formation of the C17-C16 bond, the onti-aldol 41 (ds not reported) is obtained by treatment of the aldehyde 39 with the (Z)-boron enolate 40, bearing a dithioketal moiety that is later to be the C51-C54 side chain. 3-Hydroxy-assisted, diastereoselective reduction of the keto group at C15 gives 41, which is converted into intermediate 42 in five more steps. The dethioketalization of 41 is achieved with phenyliodine(m) bis(trifluoroacetate) [16], As in Nicolaou s synthesis, the N12-C13 amide bond is formed first, followed by a low-yielding (21%, even at a concentration of 1 him) macrolactonization to 3. Table 1 summarizes the benchmark data of the two total syntheses of sanglifehrin A (1). 

The diastereoselective alkylation of /V-acyloxazolidinones enolates was examined first. Lithium enolates of 107 were reacted with a variety of alkyl halides, and alkylation products were formed with excellent diastereoselectivities (94-99% de). Hydrolysis gave optically pure carboxylic acids, and the chiral auxiliary was recovered for reuse almost quantitatively.105-106 Highly diastereoselective bromination was also achieved by reaction of the boron enolate of 107 with /V-bromosuccinimide (NBS) (98% de). Optically pure amino acids could be accessed by simple synthetic transformations (Scheme 24.26).106... 

Aldol reactions of boron enolates are frequently more diastereoselective than aldol reactions of, for example, lithium or aluminium enolates. This is partly ascribed to the relatively short boron-oxygen bond length (B-O = 1.36-1.47 A, Li-0 = 1.92-2.00 A, Al-0 = 1.92 A) which exacerbates the unfavourable 1,3-diaxial interactions that occur between the boron substituent... 

To achieve a stereoselective aldol reaction that does not depend on the structural type of the reacting carbonyl compounds, many efforts have been made to use boron enolates. Based on early studies by Mukaiyama et al.8a and Fenzl and K0ster,8b in 1979, Masamune and others reported a highly diastereoselective aldol reaction involving dialkylboron enolates (enol borinates)9... 

In 1995, Boeckman et al. disclosed a highly diastereoselective aldol reaction using the ligand 79 derived from chiral bicyclic lactam28 (Scheme 2.1z). The imide 80, readily prepared from bicyclic lactam 79 and propionyl chloride, was converted to the boron Z-enolate, which was then treated with a representative series of aldehydes at -40° C for 48 hours. The levels of diastereoselectivity observed in reactions of boron enolate derived from 80 are comparable to those... 

A kinetic study of the Ph2BOH-catalysed reactions of several aldehydes with 2 revealed that the rate of the disappearance of 2 followed first-order kinetics and was independent from the reactivity of the aldehydes used. Taking into account this result, we have proposed the reaction mechanism in which a silyl enol ether is transformed to the corresponding diphenylboryl enolate before the aldol addition step takes place (Scheme 13.1). The high diastereoselectivity is consistent with the mechanism, in which the aldol step proceeds via a chair-like six-membered transition state. The opposite diastereoselectivity in the reaction with the geometrical isomers of the thioketene silyl acetal shown in Table 13.3 also supports the mechanism via the boron enolate, because this trend was also observed in the classical boron enolate-mediated reactions in dry organic solvents. Although we have not yet observed the boron enolates directly under the reaction conditions, this mechanism can explain all of the experimental data obtained and is considered as the most reasonable one. As far as we know, this is the first example of... 

In the case of cyclohexanone the cyclopentylthexyl boron enolate must be employed to achieve high diastereoselectivity. See also Dialkylboron trifluoromethanesulfonates, this volume. 

Non-Evans Aldol Reactions. Either the syn- or onri-aldol adducts may be obtained from this family of imide-derived eno-lates, depending upon the specific conditions employed for the reaction. Although the illustrated boron enolate affords the illustrated jyn-aldol adduct in high diastereoselectivity, the addition reactions between this enolate and Lewis acid-coordinated aldehydes afford different stereochemical outcomes depending on the Lewis acid employed (eq 35). Open transition states have been proposed for the Diethylaluminum Chloride mediated, anti-selective reaction. These anfi-aldol reactions have been used in kinetic resolutions of 2-phenylthio aldehydes. ... 

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