Chiral benzamide

Birch reduction of the chiral benzamide 5 generates the amide enolate 6 (Scheme 4). This enolate has been characterized by NMR spectroscopy and by an extensive examination of the effects of changes in alkali metal, solvent, reaction... 

It is important to perform both the Birch reduction of 5 and the alkylation of enolate 6 at —78 °C. Enolate 6 obtained directly from 5 at low temperatures is considered to be a kinetic enolate . A thermodynamic enolate obtained from 6 by equilibration techniques has been shown to give an opposite sense of stereoselection on alkylation. Although a comprehensive study of this modification has not been carried out, diastereoselectivities for formation of 8 were found to be greater than 99 1 for alkylations with Mel, EtI, and PhCH2Br. Thus, it should be possible to obtain both enantiomers of a target structure by utilization of a single chiral benzamide. SE... 

A structural requirement for the asymmetric Birch reduction-alkylation is that a substituent must be present at C(2) of the benzoyl moiety to desymmetrize the developing cyclohexa-1,4-diene ring (Scheme 4). However, for certain synthetic applications, it would be desirable to utilize benzoic acid itself. The chemistry of chiral benzamide 12 (X = SiMes) was investigated to provide access to non-racemic 4,4-disubstituted cyclohex-2-en-l-ones 33 (Scheme 8). 9 Alkylation of the enolate obtained from the Birch reduction of 12 (X = SiMes) gave cyclohexa-1,4-dienes 32a-d with diastereoselectivities greater than 100 1 These dienes were efficiently converted in three steps to the chiral cyclohexenones 33a-d. 

The first asymmetric total synthesis of (+)-lycorine is outlined in Scheme 15. While our earlier applications of the Birch reduction-alkylation of chiral benzamide 5 were focused on target structures with a quaternary stereocenter derived from C(l) of the starting benzoic acid derivative, the synthesis of 64 demonstrates that the method also is applicable to the construction of chiral six-membered rings containing only tertiary and trigonal carbon atoms. s... 

The classical Harley-Mason cyclization was utilized en route to (—)-aspidospermidine 84. 9 The synthesis of 84 required 12 steps from the chiral benzamide 12 (X = SiMcs) and was carried out with an overall yield of 19%. 

Birch reduction-methylation of the 2,3-dialkyl substituted benzamide 85 (Scheme 19) provided the cyclohexa-1,4-diene 86 with diastereoselectivity comparable to that observed with the 2-alkylbenzamides illustrated in Scheme 4. Cyclohexadiene 86 was converted to iodolactone 87 and reduction of 87 with BusSnH occurred with exclusive equatorial delivery of hydrogen to give the axial methoxyethyl derivative 88. Lactone 88 was converted to the Caribbean fruit fly pheromone (+)-epia-nastrephin 90 (> 98% ee) in 9.5% overall yield from the chiral benzamide 85. °... 

Chiral benzamides I and the pyrrolobenzodiazepine-5,11-dio-nes n have proven to be effective substrates for asymmetric organic synthesis. Although the scale of reaction in our studies has rarely exceeded the 50 to 60 g range, there is no reason to believe that considerably larger-scale synthesis will be impractical. Applications of the method to more complex aromatic substrates and to the potentially important domain of polymer supported synthesis are currently under study. We also are developing complementary processes that do not depend on a removable chiral auxiliary but rather utilize stereogenic centers from the chiral pool as integral stereodirectors within the substrate for Birch reduction-alkylation. 

Chiral benzamide 5 is available from Aldrich Chemical Co. 

Stereoselective deprotonation of componnd 581 is possible (Scheme 233), bnt the yields and enantioselectivities obtained are poorer than for the chromium-complexed analogues (see below). With an internal electrophilic quench it was possible to form the axially chiral benzamide 582 in 89% ee using hthium amide 360 . 

In the laboratory of A.G. Schultz during the asymmetric total synthesis of two vincane type alkaloids, (+)-apovincamine and (+)-vincamine, it was necessary to construct a crucial c/s-fused pentacyclic diene intermediate. The synthesis began by the Birch reduction-alkylation of a chiral benzamide to give 6-ethyl-1-methoxy-4-methyl-1,4-cyclohexadiene in a >100 1 diastereomeric purity. This cyclohexadiene was first converted to an enantiopure butyrolactone which after several steps was converted to (+)-apovincamine. 

Birch reduction of chiral benzamide (181) followed by oxidation of the resulting enolate with (+)-(114) afforded dienol (182) in 86% de, but in only 16% yield <92JOC2973>. The yield improves to 57%, (80% based on recovered starting material) if ammonia is removed prior to the oxidation (Scheme 33). Asymmetric hydroxylation of the prochiral enolate derived from the Birch reduction of methyl 2-methoxybenzoate with ( + )-(114) gave the corresponding dienol in 50-60% yield and 30% ee. 

Stereoselective Birch reduction is possible and a number of examples have been reported, particularly for selective alkylation of the intermediate enolate anion. For example, reduction of the chiral benzamide 69 with potassium in ammonia, followed by alkylation with ethyl iodide gave essentially a single diastereomer of the cyclohexadiene 70, which was used in a synthesis of (-l-)-apovincamine (7.50). 

Synthetic applications of the asymmetric Birch reduction and reduction-alkylation are reported. Synthetically useful chiral Intermediates have been obtained from chiral 2-alkoxy-, 2-alkyl-, 2-aryl- and 2-trialkylsllyl-benzamides I and the pyrrolobenzodlazeplne-5,ll-diones II. The availability of a wide range of substituents on the precursor benzoic acid derivative, the uniformly high degree of dlastereoselection in the chiral enolate alkylation step, and the opportunity for further development of stereogenic centers by way of olefin addition reactions make this method unusually versatile for the asymmetric synthesis of natural products and related materials. 

In a further development of the norbornene/anihne OHA reaction, Salzer and coworkers used planar chiral arene-chromium-tricarbonyl-based diphosphines for the in situ formation of cis-trans mixtures of complexes 9 and 10 that gave enanti-oselectivities of 51% and 70%, respectively, at 333 K and with a 40-fold excess of naked fluoride , but activities were very low. In the same paper complex 6 was shown to be superior in both activity and enantioselectivity (64% ee) to the corresponding Josiphos compound 5 [15]. The activated N-H bond of benzamide was also stereoselectively added across the double bond of norbornene to afford N-benzoyl-e%o-aminonorbornane in up to 50% yield and 73% ee in the presence of 0.5mol% [IrCl((R)-MeO-bipheb)]2 at 373 K [16]. 

Birch reduction of enantiomcrieally pure benzamides followed by alkylation of the amide enolate was used with remarkable success to obtain chiral cyclohexadiene derivatives22. In this case the chiral auxiliary was located in the benzamide moiety. 

Thus, treatment of the benzamide (35-1) from 2-phenethylamine with phosphorus oxychloride probably results in an initial formation of a transient enol chloride this then cycUzes to (35-2) under reaction conditions. The imine is then reduced with sodium borohydride. Resolution by means of the tartrate salt affords (35-3) in optically pure form. Acylation of that intermediate with ethyl chloroformate leads to carbamate (35-4). Reaction of this last with the anion from chiral quiniclidol (35-5) interestingly results in the equivalent of an ester interchange. There is thus obtained the anticholinergic agent solifenacin (35-6) [40]. 

Although the racemization of the a-carbon can now be considered a potential problem, the synthesis of 32-peptides has been achieved in the same way as seen for 33-peptides. As the 32-amino acids cannot be prepared from the analogous a-amino acids, Seebach and co-workers 5,7 opted to use Evans oxazolidinone chemistry to produce enantiomerically pure 32-amino acids. Alkylation of 3-acyloxazolidin-2-ones 17 with A-(chloromethyl)benzamide yielded the products 18 with diastereomeric ratios between 93 7 and 99 1 (Scheme 8). Removal of the chiral auxiliary (Li0H/H202) and debenzoylation (refluxing acid) was followed by ion-exchange chromatography to yield the free 32-amino acids 20 which were converted by standard means into Boc 21 or benzyl ester 22 derivatives for peptide synthesis. 

Attempts to induce asymmetry in the cyclisation of 57 using the chiral lithium amides, which had worked well with simple benzamides, were frustrated by the inherent chirality, at low temperature, of the naphthamide itself. This feature is common to all 2-substituted tertiary aromatic amides, which may become atropisomeric at low temperature due to slow rotation about the Ar-CO bond.48 We therefore sought to... 

Sakamoto et al. provided an example of absolute asymmetric synthesis involving hydrogen abstraction by thiocarbonyl sulfur (Scheme 6). [24] Achiral A -diphenylacetyl-iV-isopropylthiobenzamide 33 and Y-diphenylacetyl-A-isopropyl(p-chloro)thio-benzamide 33 crystallize in chiral space group P2 2 2. Photolysis of the chiral crystals in the solid state gave optically active azetidin-2-ones whereas achiral thioketones were obtained as main products. When 33a was irradiated in the solid state at -45°C followed by acetylation (at -78°C), 2-acetylthio-3,3-dimethyl-l-diphenylacetyl-2-phenylaziridine (34a 39% yield, 84% ee), 4-acetylthio-5,5-dimethyl-2-diphenylmetyl-4-phenyloxazoline (35a 10% yield, 50% ee), 3,3-diphenyl-1-isopropy 1-4-... 

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