Chiral products

Many of the reactions we ve already encountered can yield a chiral product from an achi ral starting material Epoxidation of propene for example creates a chirality center by adding oxygen to the double bond... 

In this as m other reactions m which achiral reactants yield chiral products the product IS formed as a racemic mixture and is optically inactive Remember for a substance to be optically active not only must it be chiral but one enantiomer must be present m excess of the other... 

FIGURE 17 14 (a) Binding sites of enzyme discriminate between prochiral faces of substrate One prochiral face can bind to the enzyme better than the other (b) Reaction attaches fourth group to substrate producing only one enantiomer of chiral product... 

Enantiomers (Section 7 1) Stereoisomers that are related as an object and its nonsupenmposable mirror image Enantioselective synthesis (Section 27 4) Reaction that converts an achiral or racemic starting material to a chiral product in which one enantiomer is present in excess of the other... 

Chira.lHydrogena.tion, Biological reactions are stereoselective, and numerous dmgs must be pure optical isomers. Metal complex catalysts have been found that give very high yields of chiral products, and some have industrial appHcation (17,18). The hydrogenation of the methyl ester of acetamidocinnamic acid has been carried out to give a precusor of L-dopa, ie, 3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine, a dmg used in the treatment of Parkinson s disease. 

Kinetic Resolutions. From a practical standpoint the principal difference between formation of a chiral molecule by kinetic resolution of a racemate and formation by asymmetric synthesis is that in the former case the maximum theoretical yield of the chiral product is 50% based on a racemic starting material. In the latter case a maximum yield of 100% is possible. If the reactivity of two enantiomers is substantially different the reaction virtually stops at 50% conversion, and enantiomericaHy pure substrate and product may be obtained ia close to 50% yield. Convenientiy, the enantiomeric purity of the substrate and the product depends strongly on the degree of conversion so that even ia those instances where reactivity of enantiomers is not substantially different, a high purity material may be obtained by sacrificing the overall yield. 

If a similar process occurred involving the two protons at C-1, a stereochemically different situation will result. Substitution at C-1 produces a chiral product, -deuterio-, i-propanediol ... 

Asymmetric Diels-Alder reactions using a dienophile containing a chiral auxiliary were developed more than 20 years ago. Although the auxiliary-based Diels-Alder reaction is still important, it has two drawbacks - additional steps are necessary, first to introduce the chiral auxiliary into the starting material, and then to remove it after the reaction. At least an equimolar amount of the chiral auxiliary is, moreover, necessary. After the discovery that Lewis acids catalyze the Diels-Alder reaction, the introduction of chirality into such catalysts has been investigated. The Diels-Alder reaction utilizing a chiral Lewis acid is truly a practical synthetic transformation, not only because the products obtained are synthetically useful, but also because a catalytic amount of the chiral component can, in theory, produce a huge amount of the chiral product. 

Most of the biochemical reactions that take place in the body, as well as many organic reactions in the laboratory, yield products with chirality centers. Fo example, acid-catalyzed addition of H2O to 1-butene in the laboratory yield 2-butanol, a chiral alcohol. What is the stereochemistry of this chiral product If a single enantiomer is formed, is it R or 5 If a mixture of enantiomers i formed, how much of each In fact, the 2-butanol produced is a racemic mix ture of R and S enantiomers. Let s see why. 

In contrast to laboratory reactions, enzyme-catalyzed reactions often give a single enantiomer of a chiral product, even when the substrate is achiral. One step in the citric acid cycle of food metabolism, for instance, is the aconitase-catalyzed addition of water to (Z)-aconitate (usually called ris-aconitate) to give isocitrate. 

Many reactions give chiral products. If the reactants are optically inactive, the products are also optically inactive. If one or both of the reactants is optically active, the product can also be optically active. 

Whenever a chiral product is formed by reaction between achiral reagents, the product is racemic that is, both enantiomers of the product are formed in equal amounts. The epoxidation reaction of geraniol with m-chloroperoxybenzoic acid, for instance, gives a racemic mixture of (2R,3S) and (2S,3R) epoxides. 

Reaction of 2-butanone with HCN yields a chiral product. What stereochemistry does the product have Is it optically active ... 

Enantioselective synthesis (Chapter 19 Focus On) A reaction method that yields only a single enantiomer of a chiral product starting from an achiral substrate. 

In a catalytic asymmetric reaction, a small amount of an enantio-merically pure catalyst, either an enzyme or a synthetic, soluble transition metal complex, is used to produce large quantities of an optically active compound from a precursor that may be chiral or achiral. In recent years, synthetic chemists have developed numerous catalytic asymmetric reaction processes that transform prochiral substrates into chiral products with impressive margins of enantio-selectivity, feats that were once the exclusive domain of enzymes.56 These developments have had an enormous impact on academic and industrial organic synthesis. In the pharmaceutical industry, where there is a great emphasis on the production of enantiomeri-cally pure compounds, effective catalytic asymmetric reactions are particularly valuable because one molecule of an enantiomerically pure catalyst can, in principle, direct the stereoselective formation of millions of chiral product molecules. Such reactions are thus highly productive and economical, and, when applicable, they make the wasteful practice of racemate resolution obsolete. 

Due to the inherent unsymmetric arene substitution pattern the benzannulation reaction creates a plane of chirality in the resulting tricarbonyl chromium complex, and - under achiral conditions - produces a racemic mixture of arene Cr(CO)3 complexes. Since the resolution of planar chiral arene chromium complexes can be rather tedious, diastereoselective benzannulation approaches towards optically pure planar chiral products appear highly attractive. This strategy requires the incorporation of chiral information into the starting materials which may be based on one of three options a stereogenic element can be introduced in the alkyne side chain, in the carbene carbon side chain or - most general and most attractive - in the heteroatom carbene side chain (Scheme 20). 

Several reaction types and functional group transformations will be outlined in the following sections with a major emphasis on those biocatalytic processes of major impact on enantioselective synthesis and chiral product preparation. 

In case of primary alcohol substrates, biooxidation can also proceed to the carboxylic acid, enabling a facile separation of the chiral products by simple extraction. Whole-cells of Gluconobacter oxydans were utilized to produce S-2-phenylpro-panoic acid and R-2-phenylpropionic alcohol in excellent yields and optical purities (Scheme 9.4) [46]. 

Scheme 9.4 Kinetic resolution by alcohol oxidation toward chiral products.

All chiral products as well as enantiomerically enriched substrate ketones from such transformations are valuable building blocks in asymmetric synthesis [182,183]. While CHMO-type enzymes in general display such a behavior, CPMO-type biocatalysts give... 

In a special case of this type of asymmetric synthesis, a compound (47) with achiral molecules, but whose crystals are chiral, was converted by UV light to a single enantiomer of a chiral product (48). ... 

Enantioselective reduction is not possible for aldehydes, since the products are primary alcohols in which the reduced carbon is not chiral, but deuterated aldehydes RCDO give a chiral product, and these have been reduced enantioselectively with B-(3-pinanyl)-9-borabicyclo[3.3.1]nonane (Alpine-Borane) with almost complete optical purity. ... 

For example, the hydrogenation of methyl (Z)-a-acetamidocinnamate gives a chiral product when conducted in the presence of a chiral diphosphine catalyst. The enantiomeric excess data for micro-reactor and batch operation are in line when performed imder similar conditions [169]. A very high reproducibility of determining data on enantiomeric excess was reported [170]. In addition, the ee distribution was quite narrow 90% of aU ee data were within 40-48% [170]. 

In the same area, a (5)-tryptophan-derived oxazaborolidine including a p-tolylsulfonylamide function has been used by Corey et al. to catalyse the enantioselective Diels-Alder reaction between 2-bromoacrolein and cyclo-pentadiene to form the corresponding chiral product with an unprecedented high (> 99% ee) enantioselectivity (Scheme 5.27)." This highly efficient methodology was extended to various 2-substituted acroleins and dienes such as isoprene and furan. In addition, it was applied to develop a highly efficient total synthesis of the potent antiulcer substance, cassiol, as depicted in Scheme 5.21... 

Figure 7.27. ORTEP representations from X-ray data of the salts 76a with (S)-PEA, and (a) chiral product 76a-(S)-PEA, and (b) the overlap of both starting material and product at 50% conversion of the crystal-to-crystal reaction. (Taken from reference 174.)...

There are two objectives of setting up a kinetic mathematical model for chiral products. The first is the elucidation of the reaction mechanism with identification of the rate-controlhng step. The second is to derive a mathematical expression for the selectivity in terms of the ratio of the major product to the minor product. Then, based upon this expression, the reaction conditions such as pressure or feed ratio are changed to increase the selectivity. However, when the enantiomeric purity is over 99%, the selectivity is extremely high hence, the reaction mechanism for the major manifold can be neglected to simplify the establishment of the kinetic model. 

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