Chiral compounds, Amino acids Cyanohydrins

Cyanohydrins are starting materials of widespread interest for preparing important compounds such as a-hydroxy acids/esters, a-amino acids, / -amino alcohols, a-hydroxy aldehydes, vicinal diols, and a-hydroxy ketones. Cyanohydrin compounds can be synthesized using various chiral catalysts such as cyclic... 

Therefore, the chiral cyanohydrins are valuable and versatile synthons as their single hydroxyl asymmetric centre is accompanied by at least one other chemical functionality. Thus with careful functional group protection, differential and selective chemical transformations can be performed. Such synthetic techniques lead to production of interesting bioactive compounds and natural products. These products include intermediates of j3-blockers 15 1117], j3-hydroxy-a-amino acids 16 [118],chiral crown ethers 17 [lll],coriolic acid 18 [120], sphingosines 19 [121], and bronchodilators such as salbutamol 20 [122] (Fig. 3). 

Although prochiral or chiral alcohols and carboxylic acid esters initially served as the primary classes of substrates, compounds susceptible to processing via these two routes now encompass diols, a- and 3-hydroxy acids, cyanohydrins, chlorohydrins, diesters, lactones, amines, diamines, amino alcohols, and a-and 3-amino acid derivatives. Gotor and Arroyo have reviewed the use of biocatalysts for the preparation of pharma-eeutical intermediates and fine ehemieals. Some specific examples are indieated below. 

Silyl cyanides react enantioselectively with such electrophiles as aldehydes, ketones, imines, activated azines, or,/ unsaturated carbonyl compounds, epoxides, and aziridines in the presence of chiral Lewis acid catalysts to give functionalized nitriles, versatile synthetic intermediates for hydroxy carboxylic acids, amino acids, and amino alcohols (Tables 3-6, 3-7, 3-8, and 3-9, Figures 3-6, 3-7, and 3-8, and Scheme 3-154). ° Soft Lewis acid catalytst, the reaction of epoxides with trimethylsilyl cyanide often leads to isonitriles, which are derived from silylisonitrile spiecies (Schemes 3-155 and 3-156). Soft Lewis base such as phosphine oxide also catalyzes the reaction and cyanohydrin silyl ethers of high ee s are isolated. 

Although HCN also adds to these unsaturated bonds to afford cyanohydrins and a-amino nitriles, use of TMSCN instead of HCN provides an efficient and safer route to these compounds. Cyanosilylation with TMSCN is accelerated by acid and base catalysts. In recent years a variety of organic and inorganic compounds have been found to work as effective catalysts, and much attention has been devoted for the development of chiral catalysts for asymmetric cyanosilylation of aldehydes, ketones, and imines. 

Optically active cyanohydrins can be easily transformed to P-hydroxy amines, a-hydroxy and a-amino carboxylic acids, which represent versatile intermediates for the synthesis of biologically important compounds, including insecticides and medicines [189, 190]. Asymmetric cyanation of carbonyl compounds catalyzed by chiral metal complexes, particularly titanium compounds, has provided one of the most convenient protocols to the access of these type of compounds. The first example of catalytic asymmetric cyanation of aliphatic aldehydes was realized in Reetz s group using BINOL-Ti complex as the catalyst to give the cyanohydrins in up to 82% ee [104] (Scheme 14.85). 

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