Carbonation carbanion

FIGURE 14-26 Carbanion intermediates stabilized by covalent interactions with transketolase and transaldolase, (a) The ring of TPP stabilizes the two-carbon carbanion carried by transketolase see Fig. 14-13 for the chemistry of TPP action, (b) In the transaldolase reaction, the protonated Schiff base formed between the e-amino group of a Lys side chain and the substrate stabilizes a three-carbon carbanion. 

Attack by the carbanion on another alkene molecule would give a four-carbon carbanion, and subsequent additions to further alkene molecules would lead to a high-molecular-weight anion ... 

Transketolase removes a two-carbon fragment from ketols such as fructose 6-phosphate (alternatively xylulose 5-phosphate or sedoheptu-lose 7-phosphate) through the participation of thiamine diphosphate. Nucleophilic attack of the thiamine diphosphate anion on to the carbonyl results in an addition product which then fragments by a reverse aldol reaction, generating the chain-shortened aldose erythrose 4-phosphate, and the two-carbon carbanion unit attached to TPP (Figure 8.5) (compare the role of TPP in the decarboxylation of a-keto... 

These enzymes catalyze preequilibrium proton exchange at the nucleophilic carbon center at a rate consistent with the intermediate involvement of the conjugate base in the condensation reaction (6). The reaction is formally electrophilic substitution of a carbonyl carbon for a proton at the a-carbon atom of the enamine. Stereochemical studies have shown that the proton and carbonyl bind to the same face of the enamine carbon (carbanionic center) (Scheme 7) (7). 

The Claisen condensation is initiated by deprotonation of an ester molecule by sodium ethanolate to give a carbanion that is stabilized, mostly by resonance, as an enolate. This carbanion makes a nucleophilic attack at the partially positively charged carbon atom of the e.ster group, leading to the formation of a C-C bond and the elimination ofan ethanolate ion, This Claisen condensation only proceeds in strongly basic conditions with a pH of about 14. 

The role of the base is apparently primarily that of a proton remover from the reactive methylene group thus if B represents the base, reaction (i) gives the carbanion, which then combines with the positive carbon of the carbonyl group (reaction ii) the product regains a proton from the piperidinium ion, and then by loss of water followed by mono-decarboxylation of the malonic acid residue gives the final acid. 

The first step is the interaction of the basic catalyst with the ester to produce the carbanion (I) the carbanion so formed then attacks the carbonyl carbon of a second molecule of ester to produce the anion (II), which is converted to ethyl acetoacetate (II) by the ejection of an ethoxide ion. Finally (III) reacts with ethoxide ion to produce acetoacetic ester anion (IV). This and other anions are mesomeric thus (IV) may be written ... 

CjHsOOC)—CH—COOCjHj (I) + HOC Hj The carbanion (I) is a resonance hybrid (mesomeric anion) to which there are contributions carrying the negative charge on either carbon or oxygen ... 

During this time I suggested (in 1972) naming the cations of carbon compounds carbocations (because the corresponding anions were named carbanions ). To my surprise, the name stuck and was later officially adopted by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry for general use. 

Carbanions are negatively charged organic species with an even number of electrons and the charge mainly concentrated on a carbon atom. In alkyl, alkenyl, and alkynyl anions all of the... 

More recent developments are based on the finding, that the d-orbitals of silicon, sulfur, phosphorus and certain transition metals may also stabilize a negative charge on a carbon atom. This is probably caused by a partial transfer of electron density from the carbanion into empty low-energy d-orbitals of the hetero atom ( backbonding ) or by the formation of ylides , in which a positively charged onium centre is adjacent to the carbanion and stabilization occurs by ylene formation. 

The introduction of additional alkyl groups mostly involves the formation of a bond between a carbanion and a carbon attached to a suitable leaving group. S,.,2-reactions prevail, although radical mechanisms are also possible, especially if organometallic compounds are involved. Since many carbanions and radicals are easily oxidized by oxygen, working under inert gas is advised, until it has been shown for each specific reaction that air has no harmful effect on yields. 

The simplest case is the substitution of a halogen at a saturated carbon atom by an alkyl group. Organocopper reagents exhibit strong carbanionic capacity, and do attack ester groups only slowly (D.E. Bergbreiter, 1975). Ketones, however, should be protected. The relative re-... 

Esters are alkylated in the presence of strong bases in aprotic solvents. A common combination is LDA in tetrabydrofuran at low temperatures. Equimolar amounts of base are sufficient and only the mono-carbanion Js formed. After addition of one mole of alkyl halide the products form rapidly, and no dialkylation, which is a problem in the presence of excess base, is possible. Addition of one more mole of LDA and of another alkyl halide leads to asymmetric dialkylation of one or-carbon atom in high yield (R.J. Cregge, 1973). 

If alkyl groups are attached to the ylide carbon atom, cis-olefins are formed at low temperatures with stereoselectivity up to 98Vo. Sodium bis(trimethylsilyl)amide is a recommended base for this purpose. Electron withdrawing groups at the ylide carbon atom give rise to trans-stereoselectivity. If the carbon atom is connected with a polyene, mixtures of cis- and rrans-alkenes are formed. The trans-olefin is also stereoseiectively produced when phosphonate diester a-carbanions are used, because the elimination of a phosphate ester anion is slow (W.S. Wadsworth, 1977). 

In the synthesis of molecules without functional groups the application of the usual polar synthetic reactions may be cumbersome, since the final elimination of hetero atoms can be difficult. Two solutions for this problem have been given in the previous sections, namely alkylation with nucleophilic carbanions and alkenylation with ylides. Another direct approach is to combine radical synthons in a non-polar reaction. Carbon radicals are. however, inherently short-lived and tend to undergo complex secondary reactions. Escheirmoser s principle (p. 34f) again provides a way out. If one connects both carbon atoms via a metal atom which (i) forms and stabilizes the carbon radicals and (ii) can be easily eliminated, the intermolecular reaction is made intramolecular, and good yields may be obtained. 

Carboxyl and nitrile groups are usually introduced in synthesis with commercial carboxylic acid derivatives, nitriles, or cyanide anion. Carbanions can be carboxylated with carbon dioxide (H.F. Ebel, 1970) or dialkyl carbonate (J. Schmidlin, 1957). 

The reactions described so far can be considered as alkylation, alkenylation, or alkynylation reactions. In principle all polar reactions in syntheses, which produce monofunctional carbon compounds, proceed in the same way a carbanion reacts with an electropositive carbon atom, and the activating groups (e.g. metals, boron, phosphorus) of the carbanion are lost in the work-up procedures. We now turn to reactions, in which the hetero atoms of both the acceptor and donor synthons are kept in a difunctional reaction produa. 

The most general methods for the syntheses of 1,2-difunctional molecules are based on the oxidation of carbon-carbon multiple bonds (p. 117) and the opening of oxiranes by hetero atoms (p. 123fl.). There exist, however, also a few useful reactions in which an a - and a d -synthon or two r -synthons are combined. The classical polar reaction is the addition of cyanide anion to carbonyl groups, which leads to a-hydroxynitriles (cyanohydrins). It is used, for example, in Strecker s synthesis of amino acids and in the homologization of monosaccharides. The ff-hydroxy group of a nitrile can be easily substituted by various nucleophiles, the nitrile can be solvolyzed or reduced. Therefore a large variety of terminal difunctional molecules with one additional carbon atom can be made. Equally versatile are a-methylsulfinyl ketones (H.G. Hauthal, 1971 T. Durst, 1979 O. DeLucchi, 1991), which are available from acid chlorides or esters and the dimsyl anion. Carbanions of these compounds can also be used for the synthesis of 1,4-dicarbonyl compounds (p. 65f.). 

Facile reaction of a carbon nucleophile with an olefinic bond of COD is the first example of carbon-carbon bond formation by means of Pd. COD forms a stable complex with PdCl2. When this complex 192 is treated with malonate or acetoacetate in ether under heterogeneous conditions at room temperature in the presence of Na2C03, a facile carbopalladation takes place to give the new complex 193, formed by the introduction of malonate to COD. The complex has TT-olefin and cr-Pd bonds. By the treatment of the new complex 193 with a base, the malonate carbanion attacks the cr-Pd—C bond, affording the bicy-clo[6.1,0]-nonane 194. The complex also reacts with another molecule of malonate which attacks the rr-olefin bond to give the bicyclo[3.3.0]octane 195 by a transannulation reaction[l2.191]. The formation of 194 involves the novel cyclopropanation reaction of alkenes by nucleophilic attack of two carbanions. 

The TT-allylpalladium complexes 241 formed from the ally carbonates 240 bearing an anion-stabilizing EWG are converted into the Pd complexes of TMM (trimethylenemethane) as reactive, dipolar intermediates 242 by intramolecular deprotonation with the alkoxide anion, and undergo [3 + 2] cycloaddition to give five-membered ring compounds 244 by Michael addition to an electron-deficient double bond and subsequent intramolecular allylation of the generated carbanion 243. This cycloaddition proceeds under neutral conditions, yielding the functionalized methylenecyclopentanes 244[148], The syn-... 

The conjugate base of a hydrocarbon is called a carbanion It is an anion in which the negative charge is borne by carbon Because it is derived from a very weak acid a car banion such as CH3 is an exceptionally strong base... 

The carbon-metal bonds of organolithium and organomagnesium compounds have appreciable carbamomc character Carbanions rank among the strongest bases that we 11 see m this text Their conjugate acids are hydrocarbons—very weak acids indeed The equilibrium constants for ionization of hydrocarbons are much smaller than the s for water and alcohols thus hydrocarbons have much larger pA s... 

---