Chiral compound stereoselective synthesis carbonyl reduction

Johnson in 1993 described an approach to racemic p-amyrin involving application of a biomimctic polyene cyclization.7 In the same year Corey accomplished the enantioseleetive synthesis of compound 4. a key intermediate that opened the way to stereoselective preparation of compounds I, 2. and 3 8 A key step in the synthesis of P-amyrin (1) was the introduction of chiral oxazaboroli-dines for enantioseleetive carbonyl reduction. Ba ed on these methods, generation of an enantiomerically pure epoxide and its stereoselective cationic cyclization led to the pentacyclic system of structure 1 Diastereoselective cyclopropanation and an intramolecular protonation of a carbanion represent other interesting steps in this total synthesis. 

Although carbohydrates are cheap and readily available chiral compounds, their application in stereoselective synthesis was for a long time limited to ex-chiral-pool syntheses [3]. They have been considered too complex compared to other chiral auxiliaries, for example a-pinene in borane-chemistry [4] or BINAP-derivatives in reduction chemistry [5]. However, it has been shown during the past few years that carbohydrates can be successfully applied as stereodifferentiating tools in many different reaction types such as aldol- [6], hydrogenation- [7], carbonyl addition- [8], Michael- [9], Diels-Alder- [10], hetero-Diels-Alder [11], and rearrangement reactions [12]. 

Reduction of amino-carbonyl compounds is another long-established method for preparation of amino-alcohols, and dia-stereoselective synthesis of y-amino-alcohols with three chiral... 

Over the years, stereoselective synthesis with the help of chiral auxiliaries has emerged as an important synthetic tool for synthesizing chiral molecules. This methodology allows for enantioselective synthesis of a target molecule via a diastereoselective reaction with a chiral auxiliary. The two major counterparts in reductive amination protocol are the carbonyl compound and the amine. So, enantioselective synthesis can be made possible by either taking a chiral ketone or a chiral amine as the chiral auxiliary. Both methodologies have been reported in the literature, and they are of immense synthetic importance. 

Chiral (3-hydroxy esters are versatile synthons in organic synthesis specifically in the preparation of natural products [68-70]. The asymmetrical reduction of carbonyl compounds using baker s yeast has been demonstrated and reviewed [5,71,72]. In the stereoselective reduction of P-keto ester of 4-chloro- and 4-bromo-3-oxobutanoic acid, specifically 4-chloro-3-oxobutanoic acid methyl ester, Sih and Chen [73] demonstrated that the stereoselectivity of yeast-catalyzed reductions may be altered by manipulating the size of ester group using y-chloroacetoacetate as substrate. They also indicated that the e.e. of the alcohol produced depended on the concentration of the substrate used. Nakamura et al. [74] demonstrated the reduction of p-keto ester with baker s yeast and controlled... 

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