Carbenes ring expansion

Several transformations of pyrazoles into pyridazines have been reported. In a carbene ring expansion, 3,4,5-trimethylpyrazole was treated with dichlorocarbene under neutral conditions. A very small amount of a pyridazine (51) together with a pyrimidine and two pyrazole derivatives were obtained. Under basic conditions no pyridazine was formed and the major product was the pyrazole 52, which could be rearranged with sodium ethoxide at 125° into the pyridazine 53. Pyridazines are formed also from certain pyrazoles upon heating, for example 54, - or from some pyrazolines. ... 

Another interesting route to tri-t-butylcyclobutadienes started from a tri-t-butylcyclopropene derivative and involved a carbenic ring expansion [38,54] ... 

The thiepin system 31 is formed quantitatively by ring expansion of the diazoacetate derivative 30 via carbene formation catalyzed by 7r-allylpalladium chloride and its intramolecular insertion[31], The 4-diazomethyl-4//-pyrane 32 is expanded to the oxepine 33 in quantitative yield with the same catalyst[32]. 

Intramolecular attack of the carbenes shown in Scheme 30a provides benzo[6]cyclo-hepta[(5 ]-furans and -thiophenes, but the nitrogen analogue (X = NH) yields 9,10-dihydro-acridine 81AJC1037). Photolysis of 2-biphenyl isocyanide (Scheme 30b) (72JOC3571) and thermolysis of 2-biphenylsulfonyl diazomethane (Scheme 30c) (72CC893) also result in ring expansion. 

Interest in this reaction was revived when the relevance of a carbene mechanism was realized, particularly following the demonstration (cf. SectionI,B) of a similar ring expansion of indene to 2-chloro-naphthalene by dichlorocarbene via the cyclopropane adduct. Indeed, at this time Nakazaki suggested that these reactions occurred by the addition of dichlorocarbene to the indolyl anion and subsequent rearrangement to the indolenine and, with loss of chloride ion, to the quinoline [Eq. (12)]. The preference of dichlorocarbene for... 

Very few reactions of carbenes with heterocyclic systems containing more than one hetero atom have been studied. They are confined to variants of the Reimer-Tiemann formylation of thiazoles, pyra-zoles, iminazoles, and indolizines/ and ring expansion does not appear to have been observed. 

However, the presence of a fused benzene ring was found to hmit the scope of this type of ring expansion severely. Thus the dichloro-carbene adducts of both 2H- (33) and 4H-chromen (34) failed to rearrange to 2,3-benzoxepines (35) on heating. Although some... 

The highly reactive species methylene inserts into C—H bonds,both aliphatic and aromatic,though with aromatic compounds ring expansion is also possible (see 15-62). This version of the reaction is useless for synthetic purposes because of its nonselectivity (see p. 248). This contrasts with the metal carbene insertion reaction, which can be highly selective, and is very useful in synthesis. Alkylcarbenes usually rearrange rather than give insertion (p. 249), but, when this is impossible. 

Carbenes are so reactive that they add to the double bonds of aromatic rings. The products are usually not stable and rearrange to give ring expansion. Carbene reacts with benzene to give cycloheptatriene ... 

Ring expansion of tetrahydrofurans to dihydropyrans results when their 2-W-aziiidinyl imines are heated <96CC909> and when their 2-ca-alkyl bromides are treated with Ag20 in a nucleophilic acidic solvent <96JCS(P1)413>. Alkyl carbenes and bicyclic oxonium ion intermediates are invoked, respectively. 

REMP, the acronym for ring expansion metathesis polymerisation is a special case of ROMP, where the growing polymer chain stays attached to the catalyst at both ends nntil a macrocycle is released. This requires that the active carbene be tethered... 

Considerable experimental and theoretical evidence indicates that ring expansions of singlet cyclopropylhalocarbenes (65) have minimal contributions from tunneling. Carbene 65 has been shown to be indefinitely stable in low temperature matrices. ... 

It was proposed that the more labile IR bands corresponded to the exo-carbene, 71-exo, which has the methyl and fluoro substituents aligned properly for rearrangement. The slower decaying IR bands were assigned to c do-carbene, 71-endo, which was presumed to require rotation to the exo-conformer before undergoing ring expansion. 

The key cyclization in Step B-2 was followed by a sequence of steps that effected a ring expansion via a carbene addition and cyclopropyl halide solvolysis. The products of Steps E and F are interesting in that the tricyclic structures are largely converted to tetracyclic derivatives by intramolecular aldol reactions. The extraneous bond was broken in Step G. First a diol was formed by NaBH4 reduction and this was converted via the lithium alkoxide to a monomesylate. The resulting (3-hydroxy mesylate is capable of a concerted fragmentation, which occurred on treatment with potassium f-butoxide. 

Although the merits of the synthetic method described in the preceding section are apparent, the limited applicability of this method prompted the search for alternative synthetic routes. During our work in this field we have found that a well known ring expansion via a carbene intermediate 45) does indeed proceed remarkably well with a variety of precursors. 

The synthetic utility of the ring expansion reaction was demonstrated by its application to the synthesis of thermolabile thiepins. When the diazo compound (66) obtained from benzo[c]thiopyrylium salt 65 was treated with palladium catalyst under the same conditions as in the case of 63, the product isolated was ethyl 2-naphthoate (68)48). The plausible reaction pathway is one comprising i) decomposition of 66 to the corresponding carbene intermediate, ii) ring expansion to the... 

---