Chiral lithium amides catalytic

The catalytic asymmetric rearrangement of functionalized cyclohexene and cyclopentene oxides to give chiral allylic alcohols has been studied using sub-stoichiometric amounts of a chiral lithium amide in combination with a stoichiometric amount of different lithiated imidazoles (Scheme 47).79... 

In the search for new catalytic systems (see Section II.E.2) Ahlberg and coworkers found that lithiated 1-methylimidazole (21) and 1,2-dimethylimidazole (22) form mixed heterodimers (23 and 24) with chiral lithium amide 20 (Scheme 18)45,46. 

Since most chiral lithium amides are expensive to produce, an effective, readily available and cost-efficient catalytic system using a catalytic amount of chiral lithium amide is currently a significant challenge. The chiral lithium amide should also be available in both enantiomeric forms. Asami and coworkers reported in 1994110 the first catalytic enantioselective deprotonation using chiral lithium amides. 

Asami and coworkers synthesized and applied the chiral lithium amide 14, which appeared to be more reactive than 4. It was successfully used in catalytic enantioselective deprotonation of both cyclic and acyclic epoxides (Scheme 69). Interestingly, the addition of DBU lowered the enantioselectivity ... 

In order to further develop the field of enantioselective catalytic deprotonation, it was necessary to develop bulk bases that show low reactivity toward the epoxide but have the ability to regenerate the chiral catalyst. Thus, the bulk bases should show low kinetic basicity toward the substrate, but be thermodynamically and kinetically basic enough to be able to regenerate the chiral lithium amide from the amine produced in the rearrangement. 

Ahlberg and coworkers have found that lithiated 1-methylimidazole (21) and lithiated 1,2-dimethylimidazole (22) work as such bulk bases in the presence of catalytic amounts of a readily accessible homochiral lithium amide 20 (both enantiomers are readily available) (see Section III.C)45,46. These new bulk bases are easily accessible by deprotonation of 1-methylimidazole and 1,2-dimethylimidazole by, e.g., n-BuLi (Scheme 72). Using chiral lithium amide 20 (20 mol%) and bulk base 21 or 22 (200 mol%) in the deprotonation of cyclohexene oxide 1 gave (S)-2 with the same enantiomeric excess (93%) as under stoichiometric conditions (Scheme 15). Apparently, any background reactions of the bulk bases are insignificant. Interestingly, no addition of DBU was needed to obtain the high enantioselectivities under these catalytic conditions. 

The chiral lithium amide 18 has also been used for catalytic kinetic resolution of epoxides117. Epoxide 104 was subjected for kinetic resolutions under the conditions shown in Scheme 75, which resulted in roughly enantiopure epoxide and allylic alcohol. 

Liu and Kozmin used the asymmetric deprotonation of hetero-epoxides such as 106 as key step in the synthesis of chiral polyols120. The deprotonation was carried out using the chiral lithium amide pool published in the literature and both stoichiometric and catalytic deprotonations gave satisfactory results (Scheme 78). 

Simpkins and co-workers were the first to use an asymmetric catalytic process in (-)-anatoxin-a synthesis (Newcombe and Simpkins, 1995) instead of resorting to the chiral pool strategy. Their total synthesis of (-)-anatoxin-a relied on an enantioselective enolisation reaction of a readily available ( )-3-tropinone (33), by a chiral lithium amide base (34) (Bunn et al. 1993a, 1993b) and subsequent cyclopropanation/ring expansion reaction giving the ketone 37 (Scheme 7.8). 

Research by M. Majewski et al. showed that the enantioselective ring opening of tropinone allowed for a novel way to synthesize tropane alkaloids such as physoperuvine. The treatment of tropinone with a chiral lithium amide base resulted in an enantioslective deprotonation, which resulted in the facile opening of the five-membered ring to give a substituted cycloheptenone. This enone was subjected to the Wharton transposition by first epoxidation under basic conditions followed by addition of anhydrous hydrazine in MeOH in the presence of catalytic amounts of glacial acetic acid. 

While several stoichiometric chiral lithium amide bases effect the rearrangement of raeso-epoxides to allylic alcohols [1], few examples using catalytic amounts of base have been reported. Asami applied a pro line-derived ligand to the enantioselective deprotonation of cyclohexene oxide to afford 2-cyclohexen-... 

Two further contributions illustrate how chiral lithium amides can be used as catalysts in asymmetric deprotonation reactions (Schemes 2 and 3). The first example of catalytic chiral lithium amide chemistry was reported [13] by Asami (Scheme 2). In this process an achiral base, in this case LDA, provides a stoichiometric reservoir of amidoli-thium reagent. However, deprotonation of the epoxide is affected primarily by the chiral lithium amide 11 rather than the relative excess of LDA. Turnover is possible since the resulting chiral secondary amine 10 can be deprotonated by the remaining reservoir of LDA thus regenerating the chiral base 11. For example, the deprotonation of cyclohexene oxide 8 in the presence of DBU as an additive gives the allylic alcohol 9 in 74 % ee (82 % yield) using 50 mol% of chiral base 11. 

Using this concept, the Koga group have developed [14] catalytic asymmetric deprotonation of 4-alkylcyclohexanones (Scheme 3). For example, deprotonation of 12 gives silyl enol ether 13 in good enantioselectivity. The reaction is accomplished by combining 30 mol% of chiral lithium amide 15 along... 

Asami, M., Ishizuka, T. and Inoue, S. (1994) Catal3ftic enantioselective deprotonation of mejo-epoxides by the use of chiral lithium amide. Tetrahedron.Asymmetry, 5, 793-796 Seki, A. and Asami, M. (2002) Catalytic enantioselective rearrangement of mejo-epoxides mediated by chiral lithium amides in the presence of excess cross-linked polymer-bound hthium amides. Tetrahedron, 58, 4655 663. 

Combination of achiral enolates vith achiral aldehydes mediated by chiral ligands at the enolate counter-ion opens another route to non-racemic aldol adducts. Again, this concept has been extremely fruitful for boron, tin, titanium, zirconium and other metal enolates. It has, ho vever not been applied very frequently to alkaline and earth alkaline metals. The main, inherent, dra vback in the use of these metals is that the reaction of the corresponding enolate, vhich is not complexed by the chiral ligand, competes vith that of the complexed enolate. Because the former reaction path vay inevitably leads to formation of the racemic product, the chiral ligand must be applied in at least stoichiometric amounts. Thus, any catalytic variant is excluded per se. Among the few approaches based on lithium enolates, early vork revealed that the aldol addition of a variety of lithium enolates in the presence of (S,S)-l,4-(bisdimethylamino)-2,3-dimethoxy butane or (S,S)-1,2,3,4-tetramethoxybutane provides only moderate induced stereoselectivity, typical ee values being 20% [177]. Chelation of the ketone enolate 104 by the chiral lithium amide 103 is more efficient - the j5-hydroxyl ketone syn-105 is obtained in 68% ee and no anti adduct is formed (Eq. (47)) [178]. 

Scheme 5.3 Catalytic use of chiral lithium amide 2b in enantioselective benzylation of a-tetralone.

The catalytic asymmetric Mannich reaction of lithium enolates with imines was reported in 1997 using an external chiral ligand [36]. First, it was found that reactions of lithium enolates with imines were accelerated by addition of external chiral ligands. Then, it was revealed that reactions were in most cases accelerated in the presence of excess amounts of lithium amides. A small amount of a chiral source was then used in the asymmetric version [(Eq. (8)], and chiral ligands were optimized to achieve suitable catalytic turnover [37]. 

Asymmetric formation of /i-lactams (38) in high ee has been achieved by reaction of achiral imines (36) with a ternary complex of achiral lithium ester enolate (35), achiral lithium amide, and a chiral ether ligand (37) (in either stoichiometric or catalytic amount) 45 the size and nature of the lithium amide have a considerable effect on the enantioselectivity of the ternary complex. 

Subsequent work [55-65], in particular by Asami [56-60] and Andersson [61-65], has led to the development of catalytic methods in which a sub-stoichiometric amount of a chiral diamine such as 61 or 62 is used with an over-stoichiometric quantity of an achiral lithium amide base such as LDA (Scheme 13.29). Examples of catalytic epoxide isomerizations using the Asami diamine 61 or the Andersson... 

Again, the achiral base 17 provides a reservoir of amidolithium reagent to allow catalyst turnover by deprotonation of 14 formed in situ (Scheme 3). Clearly, the kinetics of the reaction are such that deprotonation at the ketone a-carbon by the achiral lithium amide 17 is much slower than deprotonation at the 2° nitrogen of the chiral amine 14. Although the catalytic efficiency is modest, it is remarkable that catalysis of this type can be achieved. 

Sddergren, M.J. and Anderson, PG. (1998) New and high enantioselective catalysts for the rearrangement of mejo-epoxides into chiral allylic alcohols. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 120, 10760-10761 S6dergren, M.J., Bertilsson, S.K. and Anderson, P.G. (2002) Allylic alcohols via catalytic asymmetric epoxide rearrangement. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 122, 6610-6618 Bertilsson, S.K. and Anderson, P.G. (2002) Asymmetric base-promoted epoxide rearrangement achiral lithium amides revisited. Tetrahedron, 58, 4665-4668. 

Conjugate addition of the lithium salt of a chiral amine to a -substituted a, 3-unsaturated ester leads to formation of a chiral, nonracemic amino acid. Addition of the chiral, nonracemic lithium amide 5.143 (contains a phenethyl auxiliary) to 5.142 gave the amino-ester.63 Catalytic hydrogenation removed both benzylic groups (the auxiliary and the benzyl group) and acid hydrolysis of the ester moiety led to 3-amino-3-(4-benzyloxyphenyl)-propanoic acid, 5.144. The initial Michael adduct was formed with >99% dr (dr is diastereomeric ratio), leading to high enantioselectivity in 5.144 after removal of the auxiliary. 

Several new catalytic asymmetric protonations of metal enolates under basic conditions have been published to date. In those processes, reactive metal enolates such as lithium enolates are usually protonated by a catalytic amount of chiral proton source and a stoichiometric amount of achiral proton source. Vedejs et al. reported a catalytic enantioselective protonation of amide enolates [35]. For example, when lithium enolate 43, generated from racemic amide 42 and s-BuLi, was treated with 0.1 equivalents of chiral aniline 31 followed by slow addition of 2 equivalents of ferf-butyl phenylacetate, (K)-enriched amide 42 was obtained with 94% ee (Scheme 2). In this reaction, various achiral acids were... 

Our research group developed catalytic enantioselective protonations of preformed enolates of simple ketones with (S,S)-imide 23 or chiral imides 25 and 26 based on a similar concept [29]. For catalytic protonation of a lithium eno-late of 2-methylcyclohexanone, chiral imide 26, which possesses a chiral amide moiety, was superior to (S.S)-imide 23 as a chiral acid and the enolate was pro-tonated with up to 82% ee. 

The imide 6 is an excellent proton source for returning lithium enolates to chiral ketones in ether. The ee value is also greatly influenced by an additive, and LiBr appears to have the best effect. Deracemization of amides by protonation of their enolates in the presence of a chiral l-aryl-l,2,3,4-tetrahydroisoquinoline (catalytic amount) and that of the potassium enolates of A-(2-hydroxypinan-3-ylidene)-a-amino esters have remarkable efficiencies. 

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