Chiral building blocks preparation

Despite of the disadvantage, that at least one symmetrical dimer is formed as a major side product, mixed Kolbe electrolysis has turned out to be a powerful synthetic method. It enables the efficient synthesis of rare fatty acids, pheromones, chiral building blocks or non proteinogenic amino acids. The starting compounds are either accessible from the large pool of fatty acids or can be easily prepared via the potent methodologies for the construction of carboxylic acids. 

Hydroxy-L-prolin is converted into a 2-methoxypyrrolidine. This can be used as a valuable chiral building block to prepare optically active 2-substituted pyrrolidines (2-allyl, 2-cyano, 2-phosphono) with different nucleophiles and employing TiQ as Lewis acid (Eq. 21) [286]. Using these latent A -acylimmonium cations (Eq. 22) [287] (Table 9, No. 31), 2-(pyrimidin-l-yl)-2-amino acids [288], and 5-fluorouracil derivatives [289] have been prepared. For the synthesis of p-lactams a 4-acetoxyazetidinone, prepared by non-Kolbe electrolysis of the corresponding 4-carboxy derivative (Eq. 23) [290], proved to be a valuable intermediate. 0-Benzoylated a-hydroxyacetic acids are decarboxylated in methanol to mixed acylals [291]. By reaction of the intermediate cation, with the carboxylic acid used as precursor, esters are obtained in acetonitrile (Eq. 24) [292] and surprisingly also in methanol as solvent (Table 9, No. 32). Hydroxy compounds are formed by decarboxylation in water or in dimethyl sulfoxide (Table 9, Nos. 34, 35). 

The reduction of nitro ketones with baker s yeast is a good method for the preparation of chiral nitro alcohols.89 The reduction of 5-nitro-2-pentanone with baker s yeast gives the corresponding (5)-alcohol, which is an important chiral building block. Various chiral natural products are prepared from it. In Scheme 7.16, the synthesis of the pheromone of Andrena haemorrhoa is described, where the acylation of the chiral nitro alcohol followed by radical denitration is involved as key steps.89a... 

Kolbe electrolysis of trilfuoromethylated carboxylic acids has been shown to be a versatile method for providing useful building blocks having a CF3 group. Seebach and Renaud have prepared new types of trifluoromethylated chiral building blocks from enantiomerically pure 3-hydroxy-4,4,4-trifluorobutyric acid (Scheme 7.6) [76]. 

A number of enantiomerically pure chiral building-blocks, such as 292-294, have been prepared (270,271) by zinc-copper cleavage of 5-bromo-5-deoxy-2,3-0-isopropylidene-D-ribono-1,4-lactone, followed by reduction. Similarly, from the 5-iodo lactone analogue the enoic acid 295 was obtained by reaction with zinc/silver-graphite (272). 

Chiral Building Blocks Some drugs are made using chiral building blocks to generate the required chiral center in the drug. The introduction of chiral centers ensures that the reaction proceeds in the desired direction. The preparation of enalapril, an ACE inhibitor, is an example of the use of chiral building blocks. 

As seen in Section 1.3.4.1 (synthesis of lotrafiban), the recycling of an unwanted enantiomer resulting from a kinetic resolution allows theoretical yields of up to 100% to be achieved, but it can also create a bottleneck in a production process. DKR, where a starting material undergoes racemization in situ, either spontaneously or through the action of a second catalyst, offers a more efficient approach. This technique has been applied, particularly in academia, to the preparation of a broad range of chiral building blocks, and a number of recent reviews are available. 

Tietze, L.F. and Gorlitzer, J., Preparation of chiral building blocks for a highly convergent vitamin E synthesis. Systematic investigations on the enantioselectivity of the Sharpless bishydroxilation. Synthesis, 1998, 873. 

Enantiomerically pure sulfoxides play an important role in asymmetric synthesis either as chiral building blocks or stereodirecting groups [156]. In the last years, metal- and enzyme-catalyzed asymmetric sulfoxidations have been developed for the preparation of optically active sulfoxides. Among the metal-catalyzed processes, the Kagan sulfoxidation [157] is the most efficient, in which the sulfide is enantioselectively oxidized by Ti(OzPr)4/tBuOOH in the presence of tartrate as chirality source. However, only alkyl aryl sulfides may be oxidized by this system in high enantiomeric excesses, and poor enantioselectivities were observed for dialkyl sulfides. 

Enzymatic reduction of carbonyl compounds and enzymatic enantioselective transformation of racemic or meso alcohols (25,43.) are two methodologies that have proven to be beneficial in the preparation of optically active hydroxyl compounds, key chiral building blocks used in carbohydrate and natural product syntheses (44-45. Our interest in this area is to develop enzymatic routes to optically active glycerol and furan derivatives, and hydroxyaldehydes. 

The vinylcyclopropane 10 is a useful chiral building block for organic synthesis, as the vinyl group can be oxidatively cleaved if desired and further functionahzed (Scheme 14.1). Either diastereomer 20 or 21 of the cyclopropane analog of phenylalanine can be readily prepared from 10 [40]. Corey has reported another elegant appHcation of the vinylcyclopropane 10 in the asymmetric synthesis of the antidepressant (-i-)-sertraline 22 [52]. 

In 2008, Lhommet and co-workers, by extrapolation of a previously described polycyclic version [144], proposed the three-component condensation of acrolein, (5)-2-phenylglycinol, and various acyclic 1,3-dicarbonyls in toluene in the presence of 4 A molecular sieves for the preparation of chiral, bicyclic functionalized tetrahydropyridines (Scheme 50) [145]. These heterocycles may be used as chiral building blocks for the synthesis of alkaloids, as illustrated by the total enantiose-lective synthesis of (—)-lupinine in five steps and 29% overall yield. 

Rare or unnatural monosaccharides have many useful applications as nonnutritive sweeteners, glycosidase inhibitors and so on. For example, L-glucose and L-fructose are known to be low-calorie sweeteners. In addition, rare or unnatural monosaccharides are potentially useful as chiral building blocks for the synthesis of biologically active compounds. Therefore, these compounds have been important targets for the development of enzymatic synthesis based in the use of DHAP-dependent aldolases alone or in combination with isomerases. Fessner et al. showed that rare ketose-1-phosphates could be reached not only by aldol addition catalyzed by DHAP-dependent aldolases, but by enzymatic isomerization/ phosphorylation of aldoses [35]. Thus, for example, L-fructose can be prepared... 

A multigram preparation of a useful chiral building block was developed, using the Beckmann rearrangement as a key synthetic step (equation 115) °. The enantiomeric addition of thiophenol to a chalcone 313, catalysed by (+)-cinchonine, provided the chiral enantiomeric carbonyl compound 314. The Beckmann rearrangement of its oxime 315 gives the anilide of (R)-(- -)-3-phenyl-3-phenylsulfanylpropanoic acid 316. Alcoholysis produced the expected enantiomerically pure ethyl ester 317. 

The hydrovinylation reaction, the codimerization of ethene and styrene (Scheme 2), provides easy access to chiral building blocks from inexpensive hydrocarbon feedstocks, which can be used further for the preparation of fine chemicals. Key problems in this reaction include the selectivity of the reaction and the stability of the catalyst. The main side reactions are oligomerization and isomerization of the product to internal achiral alkenes. The latter reaction can be suppressed by... 

Enantiopure epoxides and vicinal diols are important versatile chiral building blocks for pharmaceuticals (Hanson, 1991). Their preparation has much in common and they may also be converted into one another. These chirons may be obtained both by asymmetric synthesis and resolution of racemic mixtures. When planning a synthetic strategy both enzymic and non-enzymic methods have to be taken into account. In recent years there has been considerable advance in non-enzymic methods as mentioned in part 2.1.1. Formation of epoxides and vicinal diols from aromatics is important for the break down of benzene compounds in nature (See part 2.6.5). 

Optically pure l,l -binaphthol and its derivatives have been evaluated as versatile chiral auxiliaries and ligands in asymmetric transformations. Research in this area has provided many efficient and useful methods for the preparation of key chiral building blocks, some of which have been used for the construction of complex natural products. The wide ranging and important applications of such compounds in organic synthesis have stimulated great interest in developing efficient methods... 

In the last decades, cyanohydrins have become versatile chiral building blocks, not only for laboratory synthesis, but also for a range of pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. Several methods for the enantioselective preparation of these compounds have been published [1, 2]. The most important synthetic approaches are catalysis by oxynitrilases, also termed hydroxynitrile lyases (HNLs), wording used in this chapter, [3] and by transition metal complexes [4], whereas the relevance of cyclic dipeptides as catalysts is decreasing [2]. 

A general method for the preparation of monofluorinated chiral building blocks has been developed which consists of fluorination of methyl 8-phenylmenthyl monoalkylmalonates 24 using lithium hexamethyldisilazanide and l-fluoro-2,4,6-trimethylpyridinium triflate (Id).63... 

The direct homologation technique was then extended to the synthesis of various uncommon carbohydrate structures. Thus, higher sugars of the L-series were obtained Starting from 2,3-0-isopropylidene-4-O-benzyl-L-threose (43) [39c] (Scheme 13), and the amino tetrose 47 and pentose 48 were prepared from the a-amino aldehyde 46 derived from L-serine [46a] (Scheme 14). These amino sugars were used as chiral building blocks for the... 

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