Cyanohydrin complexes

Acetone cyanohydrin is used as a raw material for insecticides manufacture and also to produce ethyl a-hydroxyisobutryate [80-55-7], a pharmaceutical intermediate. It has been used as a complexing agent for metals refining and separation. Acetone cyanohydrin complexes can be used to separate, Cu , , 7x5, Cd , or Fe from Mg , , Ca , Na , or on strongly basic ion-exchange resins (31). Acetone cyanohydrin is... 

Cyanide is a nucleophile known to react with various carbonyl moieties like ketones and aldehydes to yield cyanohydrin derivatives (Morrison and Boyd, 1976). Sodium pyruvate (Schwartz et al, 1979), a-ketoglutarate (Moore et al, 1986), pyridoxal-5 -phosphate (Keniston et al, 1987), and many other carbonyl compounds and their metabolites or nutrients which interact with cyanide to form cyanohydrin complexes (Way, 1984 Niknahad et al, 1994 Bhattacharya and Tulsawani, 2008) have been reported to afford significant protection against acute cyanide poisoning in vitro or in vivo. Out of all these agents, a-ketoglutarate, either alone or with sodium thiosulfate, has been considered to be a promising antidote for cyanide (Borowitz et al. 

A range of amide bases can be employed. Typically LDA is used, but in certain complex cases, LiNEt2 was found to be more effective. One exceptional case involves the ostensibly simple alkylation of a cyanohydrin acetonide with allyl chloride (Eq. 12). Here, use of LDA gave essentially none of the desired product 39, whereas KHMDS or LHMDS gave excellent yields [5]. 

The polyene macrolide filipin was isolated in 1955 from the cell culture filtrates of Sterptomyces filipinensis, and was later shown to be a mixture of four components [36]. Although too toxic for therapeutic use, the filipin complex has found widespread use as a histochemical stain for cholesterol and has even been used to quantitate cholesterol in cell membranes [37]. The flat structure of filipin III, the major component of the filipin complex, was assigned from a series of degradation studies [38]. Rychnovsky completed the structure determination by elucidating the relative and absolute stereochemistry [39]. The total synthesis plan for filipin III relied heavily on the cyanohydrin acetonide methodology discussed above. 

New synthetic methods are the lifeblood of organic chemistry. Synthetic efforts toward natural products often provide the impetus for the development of novel methodology. Reactive synthons derived from 1,3-dioxanes have proven to be valuable intermediates for both syn- and anfz-1,3-diols found in many complex natural products. Coupling reactions at the 4-position of 1,3-dioxanes exploit anomeric effects to generate syu-1,3-diols (cyanohydrin acetonides), autz-1,3-diols (4-acetoxy-1,3-dioxanes), and either syn- or azztz-1,3-diols (4-lithio-1,3-dioxanes). In the future, as biologically active polyol-containing natural products continue to be discovered, the methods described above should see much use. 

Both enzymes belong to the family of a,p-hydrolases." The active site of MeHNL is located inside the protein and connected to the outside through a small channel, which is covered by the bulky amino acid tryptophane 128." It was possible to obtain the crystal structure of the complex with the natural substrate acetone cyanohydrin with the mutant SerSOAla of MeHNL. This complex allowed the determination of the mode of substrate binding in the active site." A summary of 3D structures of known HNLs was published recently." " ... 

Cyanohydrination (addition of a cyano group to an aldehyde or ketone) is another classic reaction in organic synthesis. Enantioselective addition of TMSCN to aldehyde, catalyzed by chiral metal complexes, has also been an active area of research for more than a decade. The first successful synthesis using an (5,)-binaphthol based complex came from Reetz s group142 in 1986. Their best result, involving Ti complex, gave 82% ee. Better results were reported shortly thereafter by Narasaka and co-workers.143 They showed that by... 

Complexation of an amino acid derivative with a transition metal to provide a cyanation catalyst has been the subject of investigation for some years. It has been shown that the complex formed on reaction of titanium(IV) ethoxide with the imine (40) produces a catalyst which adds the elements of HCN to a variety of aldehydes to furnish the ( R)-cyanohydrins with high enantioselectivity[117]. Other imines of this general type provide the enantiomeric cyanohydrins from the same range of substrates11171. 

The addition of trimethylsilyl (TMS) cyanide to aldehydes produces TMS-protected cyanohydrins. In a recent investigation a titanium salen-type catalyst has been employed to catalyse trimethylsilylcyanide addition to benzaldehyde at ambient temperature1118]. Several other protocols have been published which also lead to optically active products. One of the more successful has been described by Abiko et al. employing a yttrium complex derived from the chiral 1,3-diketone (41)[119] as the catalyst, while Shibasaki has used BINOL, modified so as to incorporate Lewis base units adjacent to the phenol moieties, as the chiral complexing agent11201. 

The potassium cyanide complex of 18-crown-6 in benzene or acetonitrile undergoes Michael addition to unsaturated carbonyl compounds (Liotta et al., 1977). In the presence of acetone cyanohydrin, the catalytic (i.e. catalytic in potassium cyanide and crown ether) cycle for hydrocyanation shown in (21)... 

Hatano, M. Ikeno, T Miyamoto, T Ishihara, K. Chiral lithium binaphtho-late aqua complex as a highly effective asymmetric catalyst for cyanohydrin synthesis. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2005,127, 10116-10111. 

We reported a catalytic enantioselective cyanosUylation of ketones that produces chiral tetrasubstituted carbons from a wide range of substrate ketones [Eq. (13.31)]. The catalyst is a titanium complex of a D-glucose-derived ligand 47. It was proposed that the reaction proceeds through a dual activation of substrate ketone by the titanium and TMSCN by the phosphine oxide (51), thus producing (l )-ketone cyanohydrins ... 

Song et al. extended this methodology to include cyanosilylation of aldehydes and ketones (Eq. 32) [160], They propose that NHC 276 interacts with TMSCN to form complex LXXVIII followed by cyano group transfer to the aldehyde (Scheme 48). The carbene is then regenerated and the desired product is obtained when LXXIX fragments. Concurrently, Kondo, Aoyama and co-workers describe similar reaction conditions for the synthesis of cyanohydrins in high yields [161, 162], while Suzuki and co-workers reported a cyanosilylation of aromatic and aliphatic aldehydes in good yields [163]. 

About one-half of the product-weiglit could not be recovered in chromatograpliy of the reductive-amination mixture, and more work is clearly needed to unravel the complexity of the process. Thus far, 4 minor byproducts were isolated crystalline in yields of 1.5—3%. All possessed one 3-acetamido-3-deoxy-X-D-altro residue, in common with 91, but were not aminated in the second residue. Two of them were epi-meric 3 -carbinols resulting from nonaminative reduction, and the other two were epimeric 3 -cyanohydrins. 

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