Cleavage, retroaldol, /2-hydroxynitrosamines

These results support our hypothesis that there is a retroaldol like cleavage of 3-hydroxynitrosamines which occurs in biological systems. Our results agree with the data of Kruger, Preussmann, and Blattmann. The fact that the tertiary nitros-aminoalcohols undergo the cleavage as well as their secondary counterparts demonstrates that oxidation to a ketone is not a... 

The base-catalyzed cleavage of B-hydroxynitrosamines occurs as is shown in equation 4 to produce a smaller fragment nitrosamine and the carbonyl compound. This reaction is formally analogous to the retroaldol cleavage of a B-hydroxyaldehyde or ketone and as we will see below, appears to be mechanistically related to this transformation. We have demonstrated that this reaction occurs with a wide range of structurally variant B-hydroxynitrosamines 5). Table 1 lists the structure, yield, and reactivity estimate of the compounds that we have studied so far under the same conditions. A variety of conditions have been used to in-... 

In Table 1, we have recorded the yields of fragment nitrosamine produced when the B-hydroxynitrosamine is treated with potassium t-butoxide in tetrahydrofuran (THF) at 70° (5). Reported yields are by no means maximal and the conditions were chosen so that we could compare the rates of cleavage of a number of different B-hydroxynitrosamines. By using an appropriate alkoxide-alcohol system, a nearly quantitative yield of fragment nitrosamine can be produced in this retroaldol type cleavage reaction. 

Although our investigation of the mechanism of this transformation is incomplete at present, our data are consistent with the view that the fragmentation is an example of the retroaldol cleavage of a B-hydroxynitrosamine as depicted in Scheme 2. Such a hypothesis requires that the a-nitrosamino carbanion possess a stability similar to that of an enolate ion. Keefer and Fodor s discovery of the acidity of the a-hydrogen of the nitrosamino function ( ) and Seebach and Ender s extensive utilization of this fact in organic synthesis (7 ) adequately substantiate this point. 

If the fragmentation of the alkoxide is rate-determining and endothermic, one would expect the transition state structure to resemble the products and thence be influenced by the relative stability of the carbonyl fragment. A transformation similar to the retroaldol cleavage of B-hydroxynitrosamines has been observed. Kruger reported that the treatment of 2-ketopropylpropylnitrosa-mine with refluxing potassium hydroxide in alcohol led to the production of methyl propylnitrosamine as is illustrated in equation 6 (10). This transformation is also under study in our laboratory. 

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