Comparative Stereochemical Course

As already mentioned, complexes of chromium(iii), cobalt(iii), rhodium(iii) and iridium(iii) are particularly inert, with substitution reactions often taking many hours or days under relatively forcing conditions. The majority of kinetic studies on the reactions of transition-metal complexes have been performed on complexes of these metal ions. This is for two reasons. Firstly, the rates of reactions are comparable to those in organic chemistry, and the techniques which have been developed for the investigation of such reactions are readily available and appropriate. The time scales of minutes to days are compatible with relatively slow spectroscopic techniques. The second reason is associated with the kinetic inertness of the products. If the products are non-labile, valuable stereochemical information about the course of the substitution reaction may be obtained. Much is known about the stereochemistry of ligand substitution reactions of cobalt(iii) complexes, from which certain inferences about the nature of the intermediates or transition states involved may be drawn. This is also the case for substitution reactions of square-planar complexes of platinum(ii), where study has led to the development of rules to predict the stereochemical course of reactions at this centre. 

The authors assume that the halides react with stereoinversion, whereas the tosylates prefer suprafacial attack due to binding interaction with the lithium ion in the transition state . A comparable dependence of the stereochemical course from the leaving group has been observed in other stereodefined benzyllithiums, too . The addition of 268 to A-methyl-benzylideneimine proceeds with only low yield . ... 

By contrast, lithium enolates derived from tertiary amides do react with oxiranes The diastereoselectivity in the reaction of simple amide enolates with terminal oxiranes has been addressed and found to be low (Scheme 45). The chiral bicyclic amide enolate 99 reacts with a good diastereoselectivity with ethylene oxide . The reaction of the chiral amide enolate 100 with the chiral oxiranes 101 and 102 occurs with a good diastereoselectivity (in the matched case ) interestingly, the stereochemical course is opposite to the one observed with alkyl iodides. The same reversal is found in the reaction of the amide enolate 103. By contrast, this reversal in diastereoselectivity compared to alkyl iodides was not found in the reaction of the hthium enolate 104 with the chiral oxiranes 105 and 106 °. It should be noted that a strong matched/mismatched effect occurs for enolates 100 and 103 with chiral oxiranes, and excellent diastereoselec-tivities can be achieved. 

A further chiral auxiliary-based tactic exploited tricarbonyl( 76-arene)chromium complexes of aromatic imines 71, which reacted under ultrasound (US) irradiation with a-bromoesters in a predictable stereochemical course to give comparable amounts of /S-aminoesters and / -lactams, as outlined in equation 44127. Chromium decomplexation is eventually achieved by photochemical oxidation under air. 

Having established the three-dimentional structure of carbocations as planar, we can now study the stereochemical progression of Sk 1 reactions as compared to Sk2 reactions. As shown in Scheme 5.6, the stereochemical course of an Sk2 reaction is well defined because nucleophilic displacement of a leaving group proceeds with inversion of stereochemistry. Thus, the stereochemical outcome is defined by the stereochemistry of the starting material. As for SnI reactions, since the step required for initiation of these reactions involves formation of a planar species, incoming nucleophiles have equal access to both sides of the reactive carbocation. As shown in Scheme 5.7, this results in complete elimination of... 

Fig. 28. Strategy for comparing the stereochemical courses of [ lsO]thiophosphoryl transfer by glycerokinase, hexokinase, and pyruvate kinase.

The stereochemical course is not striking as in the former case observing, on appropriate cycloalkanes, a mixture of isomeric 1,2-dioxolanes. The ratio does not change during the irradiation [109]. In this case, to account for the catalysis of BP, Schaap et al. suggested a higher cage escape efficiency of the radical cation (BP+) from the radical ion pair, compared with that of the radical cation (74a+). Thus, the secondary exothermic electron transfer between 74a and (BP+) (exothermic by ca. 0.5 eV) is expected to occur at diffusion-controlled rate. 

In allyl systems such as 30-33 (Scheme 15) bearing two identical geminal substituents at one of the termini, 7t-o-7t isomerization can result in racemization of the allyl-palladium intermediate (or epimerization if the Pd catalyst is chiral). The relative rates of K-G-K isomerization and nucleophilic attack at the allyl system are of crucial importance for the stereochemical course of allylic substitutions with this type of substrates. If n-G-n isomerization is fast compared to nu-... 

The stereochemical course of 1,2 rearrangements is comparable to chelation-controlled rearrangements (see p 3420), and the chairlike transition state predominates. Despite the fixed vinyl double-bond geometry, however, the stereochemical outcome from these reactions indicates more or less intermediacy of the boatlike geometry, as observed in ortho ester rearrangements520- 52 h... 

These comparative studies constituted the first example of an enzyme-catalyzed hydrolysis reaction whose stereochemical course was unaffected by sulfur substitution. At the time these experiments were performed, the stereochemical courses of the reactions catalyzed by glycerol kinase (83, 84) and by the bacterial adenylate cyclase (85, 86) had already been compared in the laboratories of Knowles and Gerlt, respectively, and these were also found to be unaffected by the sulfur substitution. A number of other comparisons of this type have been made, and in no case were the stereochemical consequences of the reactions studied with chiral phosphate esters and the chiral thiophosphate analogs found to differ. This agreement suggests that the necessary use of oxygen chiral thiophosphate monoesters to study the stereochemical course of phospho-monoesterases will provide pertinent results for ascertaining whether phosphory-lated intermediates are involved in the reaction mechanism. 

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