Chiral -cyano alcohols reaction

A direct enantioselective cross-aldol-type reaction of acetonitrile with an aldehyde (RCHO) has been reported, giving /3-cyano alcohol product, R-CH (OH)-CH2-CN, (7e) in up to 77% ee.148 CH3CN, acting as an acetate surrogate, is chemoselectively activated and deprotonated using a soft metal alkoxide (CuO-Bu1) in a strong donor solvent (HMPA), with a bulky chiral diphosphine as auxiliary. 

The mechanism of these reactions is usually Sn2 with inversion taking place at a chiral RX, though there is strong evidence that an SET mechanism is involved in certain cases, ° especially where the nucleophile is an a-nitro carbanion and/or the substrate contains a nitro or cyano group. Tertiary alkyl groups can be introduced by an SnI mechanism if the ZCH2Z compound (not the enolate ion) is treated with a tertiary carbocation generated in situ from an alcohol or alkyl halide and BF3 or AlCla, or with a tertiary alkyl perchlorate. ... 

Thus reaction of the alcohol 2 with 1 leads to the two diastereomeric cyano-carbamates 3 formed as a 1 1 mixture. They are converted into the diastereomeric carbamates 4, which are separated by liquid chromatography on silica gel. The reaction of one carbamate (4a) with lithium di-n-octylcuprate affords the chiral allene 5. The final step to 6 involves introduction of the fronr-double bond. ... 

Nevertheless, a more efficient approach is to attach an electron-accepting atom or radical directly to the chiral carbon atom. Chiral acids and alcohols containing chlorine at the chiral carbon atom can easily be produced from natural amino acids via the Sandmeyer reaction they are widely used in the synthesis of FLCPs [25,26,49,52-54]. A cyano group [55,56] or a perfluorinated alkyl chain [21,57] can also be attached to the chiral center. Lactic acid is a natural chiral product as well, and its derivatives are widely used as chiral terminal groups of FLCPs [27,58-61]. The search for new chiral structures with high transverse dipole moments for FLCPs has resulted in the successful application of heterocycles such as 1,3-dioxolanes [39,62] and oxiranes [63,64]. 

Ort/io-selectivity is generally observed in the reactions of 2,4-dichloro- and 2,4-difluoro-nitrobenzene with alkoxide and thiophenoxide ions [199]. Also in less activated systems, nucleophiles generated from phenols and thiophenols with potassium fluoride-alumina and 18-crown-6-polyether will react in DMSO with cyano- or nitro-substituted fluoro- or chloro-benzenes [200]. Interestingly, the reaction of difluorobenzenes with two diffoent alcohols can occur sequentially. Introduction of the first etho" function deactivates the ring, and use of more forcing conditions allows substitution of the second fluorine [201]. Consecutive displacements of fluorine and nitro groups have been observed in the reaction of ort/io-fluoronitrobenzene with chiral acyl bicyclic lactones in a highly enantioselective synthesis of spirooxindoles [202]. 

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