Chiral auxiliary/reagent

Epoxides bearing electron-withdrawing groups have been most commonly synthesized by the Darzens reaction. The Darzens reaction involves the initial addition of an ct-halo enolate 40 to the carbonyl compound 41, followed by ring-closure of the alkoxide 42 (Scheme 1.17). Several approaches for inducing asymmetry into this reaction - the use of chiral auxiliaries, reagents, or catalysts - have emerged. 

Desilylation of the major jjw-isomer, followed by oxidative cleavage with sodium metaperiodate, liberates the 3-hydroxy-2-methyl carboxylic acids. The immolative character of this method, i.e., the destruction of the chiral auxiliary reagent in the final glycol cleavage, is a drawback. 

Compared to the lithium enolates of l and 5, the higher stereoselectivity obtained by the Mukaiyama variation is, in general, accompanied by reduced chemical yields. The chiral alcoholic moieties of the esters 3 and 7 can be removed either by reduction with lithium aluminum hydride (after protection of the earbinol group) or by aqueous alkaline hydrolysis with lithium hydroxide to afford the corresponding carboxylic acid. In both cases, the chiral auxiliary reagent can be recovered. 

Alkaline hydrolysis of the crude adduct formed with benzaldehyde, followed by treatment with diazomethane and column chromatography, affords methyl (2R,3S)-3-hydroxy-2-methyl-3-phenylpropanoate in 96% ee. Reduction of the crude products formed in the reactions with 2-inethylpropanal and 2,2-dimethylpropanal leads to the corresponding 1,3-diols with >96% ee. In both the hydrolysis and the reduction procedures, the chiral auxiliary reagent, 1,1,2-triphenyl-1,2-ethanediol, can be recovered and reused72. 

In another approach, a glucose-derived titanium enolate is used in order to accomplish stereoselective aldol additions. Again the chiral information lies in the metallic portion of the enolate. Thus, the lithiated /m-butyl acetate is transmetalated with chloro(cyclopentadienyl)bis(l,2 5,6-di-0-isopropylidene- -D-glucofuranos-3-0-yl)titanium (see Section I.3.4.2.2.I. and 1.3.4.2.2.2.). The titanium enolate 5 is reacted in situ with aldehydes to provide, after hydrolysis, /i-hydroxy-carboxylic acids with 90 95% ee and the chiral auxiliary reagent can be recovered76. 

Alkaline hydrolysis of the adducts 6 and 7, which is fairly mild in the case of the imide adducts, liberates 3-hydroxycarboxylic acids 8 or ent-8 and simultaneously regenerates the chiral auxiliary reagent. Furthermore, both enantiomers of the 3-hydroxycarboxylic acid are available in almost optically pure form depending on which reagent is chosen as the starting material. 

Crystalline, diastereomerieally pure syn-aIdols are also available from chiral A-acylsultams. lhe outcome of the induction can be controlled by appropriate choice of the counterion in the cnolate boron enolates lead, almost exclusively, to one adduct 27 (d.r. >97 3, major adduct/ sum of all other diastereomers) whereas mediation of the addition by lithium or tin leads to the predominant formation of adducts 28. Unfortunately, the latter reaction is plagued by lower induced stereoselectivity (d.r. 66 34 to 88 12, defined as above). In both cases, however, diastereomerieally pure adducts are available by recrystallizing the crude adducts. Esters can be liberated by treatment of the adducts with lithium hydroxide/hydrogen peroxide, whereby the chiral auxiliary reagent can be recovered106. 

Acetylsultam 15 is also used for stereoselective syntheses of a-unsubstituted /1-hydroxy-carboxylic acids. Thus, conversion of 15 into the silyl-A/O-ketene acetal 16 and subsequent titanium(IV) chloride mediated addition to aldehydes lead to the predominant formation of the diastereomers 17. After separation of the minor diastereomer by flash chromatography, alkaline hydrolysis delivers /f-hydroxycarboxylic acids 18, with liberation of the chiral auxiliary reagent 1919. 

When a mixture of aldehydes and (Z)-l-ethylthio-l-trimethylsilyloxy-l-propene is added slowly to a solution of tin(Il) triflate and 10-20 mol% of the chiral diamine 4 in acetonitrile, /1-silyloxy thioesters 5 are obtained in high simple diastereoselection and induced stereoselectivity. Thus, the chiral auxiliary reagent can be used in substoichiometric amount. A rationale is given by the catalytic cycle shown below, whereby the chiral tin(II) catalyst 6 is liberated once the complex 7 has formed33. 

The chiral product must be readily separable from the chiral auxiliary reagent employed in the synthesis. 

Unless the chiral auxiliary reagent is much cheaper than the desired product, the auxiliary reagent must be recoverable in good yield and with no loss in enantiomeric purity. 

Seebach and Daum (75) investigated the properties of a chiral acyclic diol, 1,4-bis(dimethylamino)-(2S,35)- and (2K,3/ )-butane-2,3-diol (52) as a chiral auxiliary reagent for complexing with LAH. The diol is readily available from diethyl tartrate by conversion to the dimethylamide and reduction with LAH. The diol 52 could be converted to a 1 1 complex (53) with LAH (eq. [18]), which was used for the reduction of aldehydes and ketones in optical yields up to 75%. Since both enantiomers of 53 are available, dextro- or levorotatory products may be prepared. The chiral diol is readily recoverable without loss of optical activity. The (- )-52-LAH complex reduced dialkyl and aryl alkyl ketones to products enriched in the (S)-carbinol, whereas (+ )-52-LAH gives the opposite result. The highest optical yield of 75% was obtained in the reduction of 2,4,6-... 

The reduction of phenyl mesityl ketone was studied with LAH modified with amino alcohols 65 to 72 in ether (the ratio LAH alcohol ketone = 1.1 1.1 1) (83). Optical yields were modest, with the highest 39%, obtained with 65 as the chiral auxiliary reagent. It was observed that there is a relationship between the preferred enantiomeric product and the structure and absolute configuration of the carbons carrying the hydroxy and amino groups. Thus the threo... 

Coordination of the aluminum atom of the reducing complex was proposed to take place both to the oxygen atom of the hydroxy group and to the nitrogen atom of the amino group. The asymmetric reduction of enamine perchlorates and ketimines with menthol and bomeol chiral auxiliary reagents (50,51) presumably involves coordination of aluminum to the nitrogen atom of the substrate. 

Asymmetric reduction of acetophenone led to (/ )-( + )-1 -phenyl-1 -ethanol with 65 to 69, and with 72, whereas the (S)-( - )-alcohol was formed with 70 and 71. Again the optical yields were relatively low, with the highest 48%, obtained with 65. Asymmetric reductions in very low optical yields were observed with the simple alcohols (-)-l-phenyl-1-ethanol (73) and (-)-3,3-di-methyl-2-butanol (74) as chiral auxiliary reagents. 

The optical yield was found to be very sensitive to structural modifications of the achiral agent. For example, use of the more bulky FV or Bu substituents in the 3,5-positions of phenol resulted in lower optical yields. In some cases a reversal of the sense of asymmetric induction was observed. Systematic variation of reaction conditions using the best achiral component, 3,5-xylenol, established that optimum results were obtained in ether solvent at about - 15°C. There was also a minor but definite influence of the rate of addition of ketone as well as an effect of concentration on optical yield, with a slower rate being advantageous. The results of reduction of aryl alkyl ketones are shown in Table 9, along with comparative results of reduction with similar chiral auxiliary reagents. 

The modification of lithium aluminum hydride with chiral auxiliary reagents has resulted in several highly effective reagents, particularly for the reduction of aryl alkyl ketones and a,0-acetylenic ketones. Applications of several of these reagents to key reduction steps in more complex syntheses have been highly successful. Chiral tricoordinate aluminum reagents have given lower enantiomeric excesses of alcohols. 

The addition of doubly deprotonated HYTRA to achiral4 5 as well as to enantiomerically pure aldehydes enables one to obtain non-racemic (3-hydroxycarboxylic acids. Thus, the method provides a practical solution for the stereoselective aldoi addition of a-unsubstituted enolates, a long-standing synthetic problem.7 As opposed to some other chiral acetate reagents,7 both enantiomers of HYTRA are readily available. Furthermore, the chiral auxiliary reagent, 1,1,2-triphenyl-1,2-ethanediol, can be recovered easily. Aldol additions of HYTRA have been used in syntheses of natural products and biological active compounds, and some of those applications are given in Table I. (The chiral center, introduced by a stereoselective aldol addition with HYTRA, is marked by an asterisk.)... 

Chiral Boronate Derivatives. A large number of chiral auxiliary reagents based on allylic boronates has been reported. This section provides a brief overview of the historically important ones, but it focuses mainly on the most popular systems and the emerging ones (Fig. 4). 

Figure 4. Common allylic boronate derivatives used as chiral auxiliary reagents in enan-tioselective carbonyl additions. (Only one stereoisomer is shown for simplicity.)...

Chiral Dialkylboranes. Several allylic boranes have been developed as chiral auxiliary reagents (Fig. 5). The introduction of terpene-based reagents such as 12 and 64-68 has been pioneered by H.C. Brown, and the most popular class remains the bis(isopinocampheyl) derivatives (structures 12, 64-66). A wide variety of substituted analogs have been reported, including the popular crotylboranes but also a number of other reagents bearing heteroatom-... 

One major advantage of chiral auxiliary reagents over chiral a-substituted reagents is the fact that the chiral diol or diamine unit is not modified in the bond-making process and is thus potentially recyclable. The preparation of enan-tiomerically pure a-substituted reagents requires a stereoinductive transformation... 

S)-a-methyl-cystein derivatives 190,191) using (190) as chiral auxiliary reagent,... 

A useful method for the diastereoselective and enantioselective synthesis of trans-and m-l,2-disubstituted cycloalkanecarboxaldehydes was devised by Koga et al.1990 starting from cycloalkanecarboxaldehydes. (S)-/er/.-Leucine ter/.-butyl ester, a highly effective chiral auxiliary reagent, could be recovered for recycling without any loss of optical purity in a reaction sequence similar to that in the acyclic synthesis of (202). 

Chiral Phosphorus Compounds Koizumi et al. 251 have prepared a series of chiral organophosphorus compounds (256) in which the phosphorus atom is the asymmetric center, whereby amino acid derivatives were used as chiral auxiliary reagents. 

ImH+ imidazolium cation amine (chiral auxiliary reagent derived... 

It is quite clear that knowledge obtained from the study of equilibrium states may be applied to mechanistic problems only in a very restricted sense. Nevertheless it is surprising that the choice of chiral auxiliary reagents for synthesis seems seldom to be influenced by considerations of structural coordination chemistry. It must be mentioned that such reactions are often carried out in a medium not familiar to the coordination chemist. ... 

Of course, the (3S)-compounds would also be formed if D-valine would be employed as chiral auxiliary. Hence, this method with valine as chiral auxiliary reagent solves the problem of enantioselective synthesis of a-methyl amino acids satisfactorily. Probably it can also be used — mutatis mutandis — for the asymmetric synthesis of a variety of a-alkyl amino acids, provided, the corresponding bis-lactim ether (type I) with valine as C-6 is regiospecifically metallated by butyl-lithium. This, for instance, is not be case with the mixed bis-lactim ether (20c) of cyclo(L-Leu-D,L-Ala)17). 

In addition to its stereoselectivity, the synthesis of chiral a-hydroxy aldehydes (69) from the aminal (68) has the advantage that the chiral auxiliary reagent (67) is easily prepared from (S)-proline, and that it may be recovered unchanged after use (79CL705). 

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