Cinchona aldol reactions

Novel aldol-type reactions under Cinchona-deriwed chiral thiourea catalysis was reported by Wang et al. [78]. In their report, a novel cascade Michael-aldol reaction was presented. The reaction involves a tandem reaction catalyzed via hydrogen-bonding with as little as 1 mol% catalyst loading to generate a product with three stereogenic centers (Scheme 28). hi the reaction of 2-mercaptobenzaldehyde 128 and a,P-unsatnrated oxazolidinone 129, the desired benzothiopyran 130 was formed smoothly in high yield and excellent stereoselectivity. 

The asymmetric conjugate additions with thiol nucleophiles was further expanded to 2-mercaptobenzaldehydes [98]. Wang had previously developed a domino Michael-aldol reaction promoted by Cinchona alkaloids, and now illustrated the utihty of cyclohexane-diamine bifunctionalized catalysts for the domino... 

Aldol reactions using a quaternary chinchona alkaloid-based ammonium salt as orga-nocatalyst Several quaternary ammonium salts derived from cinchona alkaloids have proven to be excellent organocatalysts for asymmetric nucleophilic substitutions, Michael reactions and other syntheses. As described in more detail in, e.g., Chapters 3 and 4, those salts act as chiral phase-transfer catalysts. It is, therefore, not surprising that catalysts of type 31 have been also applied in the asymmetric aldol reaction [65, 66], The aldol reactions were performed with the aromatic enolate 30a and benzaldehyde in the presence of ammonium fluoride salts derived from cinchonidine and cinchonine, respectively, as a phase-transfer catalyst (10 mol%). For example, in the presence of the cinchonine-derived catalyst 31 the desired product (S)-32a was formed in 65% yield (Scheme 6.16). The enantioselectivity, however, was low (39% ee) [65],... 

Thus, in general, the aldol reaction proceeds in the presence of 10 mol% cinchona alkaloid salts of type 31, although enantioselectivity does not exceed 62% ee [65, 66],... 

The asymmetric aldol reaction represents the most versatile protocol for the preparation of optically enriched (5-hydroxy ketones. During the last two decades, a number of observations have been made regarding asymmetric aldol and related reactions mediated by a cinchona-derived catalyst that affords high stereoselectivity. 

I n 1993, the first cinchona-catalyzed enantioselective Mukaiyama-type aldol reaction of benzaldehyde with the silyl enol ether 2 of 2-methyl-l -tetralone derivatives was achieved by Shioiri and coworkers by using N-benzylcinchomnium fluoride (1, 12 mol%) [2]. However, the observed ee values and diastereoselectivities were low to moderate (66-72% for erythro-3 and 13-30% ee for threo-3) (Scheme 8.1). The observed chiral inductioncan be explained by the dual activation mode ofthe catalyst, that is, the fluoride anion acts as a nucleophilic activator of the silyl enol ethers and the chiral ammonium cation activates the carbonyl group of benzaldehyde. Further investigations on the Mukaiyama-type aldol reaction with the same catalyst were tried later by the same [ 3 ] and another research group [4], but in all cases the enantioselectivities were too low for synthetic applications. 

As shown in Scheme 8.2, chiral P-hydroxy-a-amino adds can be obtained by the Mukaiyama-type aldol reaction of aldehydes with glycine-derived enol silyl ethers using cinchona-based quaternary ammonium salts. In 2004, Castle and coworkers [9] found that dnchona-based quaternary ammonium salts such as 13 are also able to catalyze the dired aldol readion of aldehydes with the glydne donor 14 in the presence of a phosphazene base such as BTTP (t-butyliminotri(pyrrolidino)phos-... 

As discussed above, all of the cinchona-based quaternary ammonium salts used as catalysts gave only poor to moderate diastereoselectivities and enantioselectivities for direct aldol reactions. Quite recently, a highly enantioselective, catalytic, direct aldol reaction was realized by adopting the enamine catalysis approach [12], in which 9-amino-epi-cinchona alkaloids are employed as aminocatalysts [13, 14]. 

Beside the cross aldol reaction, the Mannich reaction, too, has been the object of successful efforts using organocatalysis. The use of small organic molecules such as proline, cyclohexane diamine and Cinchona alkaloid-derived catalysts has proven extraordinarily useful for the development of asymmetric Mannich reactions in traditional polar solvents such as DMSO, DMP, DMF, etc. However, very few studies have been conducted so far in non-conventional solvents. 

The condensation reaction of (3-dicarbonyl compounds with a-haloketones to generate hydroxydihydrofuran is known as an interrupted Feist-Benary reaction. Calter et al. reported an enantioselective version of this reaction [26]. The aldol reaction of diketone with a-bromo-a-ketoester followed by cyclization proceeded in the presence of dimeric cinchona alkaloid catalyst to give cyclized product in high yield with high ee... 

Pesciaioli E, Righi P, Mazzanti A, GianeUi C, MancineUi M, BartoUi G, et al. Cinchona alkaloid-catalyzed enantioselective direct aldol reaction of N-boc-oxindoles with polymeric ethyl glyoxylate. Adv Synth Catal 2011 353(16) 2953-9. 

Some other very important events in the historic development of asymmetric organocatalysis appeared between 1980 and the late 1990s, such as the development of the enantioselective alkylation of enolates using cinchona-alkaloid-based quaternary ammonium salts under phase-transfer conditions or the use of chiral Bronsted acids by Inoue or Jacobsen for the asymmetric hydro-cyanation of aldehydes and imines respectively. These initial reports acted as the launching point for a very rich chemistry that was extensively developed in the following years, such as the enantioselective catalysis by H-bonding activation or the asymmetric phase-transfer catalysis. The same would apply to the development of enantioselective versions of the Morita-Baylis-Hillman reaction,to the use of polyamino acids for the epoxidation of enones, also known as the Julia epoxidation or to the chemistry by Denmark in the phosphor-amide-catalyzed aldol reaction. ... 

Some systems of different structure have shown their ability to catalyze the formation of a new carbon-carbon bond by reaction of two ketones. The enantioselective aldol reaction between 1,3-cyclohexanedione (173) and different a-bromoketo esters 174 followed by final cyclization gave as the main compound cw-configured 176. Several Cinchona alkaloid derivatives were tested in this transformation, with the dimeric catalyst system 175 in the presence of a proton sponge and an ammonium salt affording the best results (Scheme 4.37) [256], Also dimeric cinchona... 

Recently, an organocatalytic procedure for the direct aldol reaction of unprotected acetol and activated aromatic aldehydes catalysed by CNA ditartrates has been presented by Kacprzak and coworkers. This enamine-based protocol, which complements related work by Mlynarski and other authors with natural Cinchona alkaloids acting as chiral bases, avoids the... 

Aldol Reactions with Cinchona-derived PTC Catafysts... 

---