Chiral Reagents and Racemic Substrates

As - unlike enzymatic catalysts - many organic chiral auxiliaries are available in both enantiomeric forms, the KR process using stoichiometric or catalytic organic materials is useful and remains an active field of investigation. 

---

The reasons for the increasing acceptance of enzymes as reagents rest on the advantages gained from utilizing them in organic synthesis Isolated or wholecell enzymes are efficient catalysts under mild conditions. Since enzymes are chiral materials, optically active molecules may be produced from prochiral or racemic substrates by catalytic asymmetric induction or kinetic resolution. Moreover, these biocatalysts may perform transformations, which are difficult to emulate by transition-metal catalysts, and they are environmentally more acceptable than metal complexes. 

Non-racemic a-substituted allylic silanes, in particular crotylsilanes, are very attractive reagents despite their rather tedious preparation. They were found to provide very high transfer of chirality in their additions to achiral aldehydes under Lewis acid catalysis (Eq. 114). These reagents have been tested several times in the context of natural product synthesis. Their diastereoselectivity (syn/anti) depends on several factors, including the natme of the aldehyde substrate, the reagent, and the natme of the Lewis acid employed. For example, the syn product can be obtained predominantly in the reaction of Eq. 114 by switching to the use of a monodentate Lewis acid such as BF3. 

In one version, classical derivatization using a chiral reagent or NMR shift agent is simply parallelized and automated by the use of flow-through cells, with about 1400 ee measurements being possible per day with a precision of +5%. In the second embodiment, illustrated here in detail, a principle related to that of the MS system described in Section III.C is applied 98). Chiral or mexo-substrates are labeled to produce /. sewiio-enantiomers or psendo-meso-compo md that are then used in the actual screen. Application is thus restricted to kinetic resolution of racemates and... 

Wynberg studied stereochemistry of the McMurry reductive dimerization of camphor in detail (64). In Scheme 37, A and B are homochiral dimerization products derived by the low-valence Ti-promoted reduction, while C and D are achiral heterochiral dimers. The reaction of racemic camphor prefers homochiral dimerization (total 64.9%) over the diastereomeric heterochiral coupling (total 35.1 %). Similarly, as illustrated in Scheme 38, oxidative dimerization of the chiral phenol A can afford the chiral dimers B and C (and the enantiomers) or the meso dimer D. In fact, a significant difference is seen in diastereoselectivity between the enaritiomerically pure and racemic phenol as starting materials. The enantiomerically pure S substrate produces (S,S)-B exclusively, while the dimerization of the racemic substrate is not stereoselective. In the latter case, some indirect enantiomer effect assists the production of C, which is absent in the former reaction. Thus, it appears that, even though the reagents and reaction conditions are identical, the chirality of the substrate profoundly affects the stability of the transition state. 

Asymmetric ylide reactions such as epoxidation, cyclopropanation, aziridination, [2,3]-sigmatropic rearrangement and alkenation can be carried out with chiral ylide (reagent-controlled asymmetric induction) or a chiral C=X compound (substrate-controlled asymmetric epoxidations). Non-racemic epoxides are significant intermediates in the synthesis of, for instance, pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. 

---