Lewis bases, chiral

As an alternative approach, chiral Lewis base has been tested for catalytic allylation. Compound 139, reported by Iseki et al.,88 was the first example of a chiral Lewis base that effectively serves as a catalyst in asymmetric allylation in combination with HMPA. Allylation of aliphatic aldehydes with allyl- and crotyltrichlorosilanes in the presence of 139 provides up to 98% ee (Scheme 3-49). 

Denmark, S. E. Barsanti, P. A. Wong, K.-T. Stavenger, R. A. (1998) Enantioselective ring opening of epoxides with silicon tetrachloride in the presence of a chiral lewis base., J. Org. Chem., 63 2428-2429. 

In addition to metal catalysts, organocatalysts could also be used in asymmetric cyanation reactions. Chiral Lewis bases, modified cinchona alkaloids, catalyzed asymmetric cyanation of ketones by using ethyl cyanoformate as the cyanide source (Scheme 5.34)." Similar to metal-catalyzed reactions, ethyl cyanoformate was first activated by chiral Lewis bases to form active nucleophiles. Various acyclic and cyclic dialkyl ketones were transformed into the desired products. Because of using... 

Two patterns are possible in the activation mechanism by simple chiral Lewis base catalysts. One is through the activation of nucleophiles such as aUyltrichlorosilanes or ketene trichlorosilyl acetals via hypervalent silicate formation using organic Lewis bases such as chiral phosphoramides or A-oxides. " In this case, catalysts are pure organic compounds (see Chapter 11). The other is through the activation of nucleophiles by anionic Lewis base conjugated to metals. In this case, transmetal-lation is the key for the nucleophile activation. This type of asymmetric catalysis is the main focus of this section. 

CHIRAL LEWIS BASE-LEWIS ACID BIFUNCTIONAL CATALYSIS... 

Scheme 14 Chiral Lewis base catalyzed allylation...

The first example of a chiral Lewis base promoted allylation was given by Denmark and coworkers in 1994 [45], Stoichiometric amounts of chiral phospho-ramide R,R)-20 facilitated the enantioselective allylation (Scheme 15). There was a complete stereochemical correlation between the geometry (ElZ) of allylsilane and the diastereomeric ratio (synlanti) of the products. 

Denmark utilized chiral base promoted hypervalent silicon Lewis acids for several highly enantioselective carbon-carbon bond forming reactions [92-98]. In these reactions, a stoichiometric quantity of silicon tetrachloride as achiral weak Lewis acid component and only catalytic amount of chiral Lewis base were used. The chiral Lewis acid species desired for the transformations was generated in situ. The phosphoramide 35 catalyzed the cross aldolization of aromatic aldehydes as well as aliphatic aldehydes with a silyl ketene acetal (Scheme 26) [93] with good yield and high enantioselectivity and diastereoselectivity. 

Asymmetric Alkylation of Aldehydes Catalyzed by Chiral Lewis Bases... 

Boron enolates bearing menthol-derived chiral ligands have been found to exhibit excellent diastereo- and enantio-control on reaction with aldehydes34 and imines.35 Highly diastereo- and enantio-selective aldol additions of geometrically defined trichlorosilyl ketone enolates (31) and (32) have been achieved by promoting the reactions with chiral Lewis bases, of which (,S., S )-(33) proved to be the most effective.36 Moderate enantiomeric excesses have been achieved by using chiral ammo alcohols as catalysts for the Baylis-Hillman condensation of aldehydes with methyl vinyl ketone the unexpected pressure effect on the reaction has been rationalized.37... 

In a related study Denmark and Fan [22] investigated chiral Lewis base-catalyzed enantioselective a-additions of isocyanides to aldehydes in a Passerini-type reaction (Scheme 9.14). The development of the reaction was based on the concept of Lewis base activation of a weak Lewis acid such as SiCl4 forming a trichlorosilyl-Lewis base adduct which is capable of activating aldehydes towards nucleophilic attack. 

Modern Aldol Reactions contains several pertinent reviews (i) catalytic enantiose-lective aldols with chiral Lewis bases 97 (ii) the aldol-Tishchenko reaction 98 (iii) titanium—enolate aldols 99 (iv) crossed aldols mediated by boron and silicon enolates 100 (v) amine-catalysed aldols 101 and (vi) aldols catalysed by antibodies.102... 

Activation of Me3SiCN by coordination of the Si to lithium BINOL-ate as catalyst has been shown to result in the enantioselective formation of cyanohydrins 73 from aromatic and heteroaromatic aldehydes with 82-98% ee (Scheme 7.15) [71]. (For experimental details see Chapter 14.5.4). Several other groups have used dual activation with a chiral Lewis acid and a non-chiral Lewis base [72]. Asymmetric cyanosilylation of PhCOMe and its congeners has also been reported to occur in the presence of sodium phenyl glycinate as catalyst, with up to 94% ee [73],... 

A related reaction is the addition of isonitriles 75 to aldehydes 1 (the Passerini reaction). Denmark has demonstrated that SiCU, upon activation by a chiral Lewis base, which increased the Lewis acidity of the silicon (vide supra Scheme 7.14), can mediate this reaction to produce a-hydroxy amides 77 after aqueous work-up (Scheme 7.16). Phosphoramide 60 was employed as the chiral Lewis-basic catalyst [74]. Modification of the procedure for hydrolysis of 76 gives rise to the corresponding methyl ester (rather than the amide 77) [74]. (For experimental details see Chapter 14.5.5). 

Table 7.9 Enantioselective ring opening of meso-e poxides catalyzed by chiral Lewis bases [51a, 90-93].

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