Cyclopropanations, vinylcarbenoid stereoselectivity

Section 14.2 describes the highly stereoselective cyclopropanation chemistry of the donor/acceptor-carbenoids (Fig. 14.1a) [16]. This section introduces the range of vinyl, aryl, alkynyl, and heteroaryl functionalities that have been used as donor groups in this chemistry. Also, chiral auxiliaries and chiral catalysts that achieve high asymmetric induction in this chemistry are described [25]. The next two sections cover chemistry that is unique to the vinylcarbenoid system, namely [3-t4] cycloaddition with dienes (Fig. 14.1b see also Section 14.3) [13] and [3-1-2] cycloaddition with vinyl... 

The vinylcarbenoid [3-1-4] cycloaddition was applicable to the short stereoselective synthesis of ( )-tremulenolide A 73 and ( )-tremulenediol A 74 (Scheme 14.7) [81]. The key step is the cyclopropanation between the cyclic vinyldiazoacetate 69 and the functionalized diene 70, which occurs selectively at the ds-double bond in 70. Because of the crowded transition state for the Cope rearrangement of the divinylcyclopropane 71, forcing conditions are required to form the fused cycloheptadiene 72. The stereo-... 

Stereosectivity is a broad term. The stereoselectivity in cyclopropanation which has been discussed in the above subsection, in fact, can also be referred to as diastereoselectivity. In this section, for convenience, the description of diastereoselectivity will be reserved for selectivity in cyclopropanation of diazo compounds or alkenes that are bound to a chiral auxiliary. Chiral diazoesters or chiral Ar-(diazoacetyl)oxazolidinone have been applied in metal catalysed cyclopropanation. However, these chiral diazo precursors and styrene yield cyclopropane products whose diastereomeric excess are less than 15% (equation 129)183,184. The use of several a-hydroxy esters as chiral auxiliaries for asymmetric inter-molecular cyclopropanation with rhodium(II)-stabilized vinylcarbenoids have been reported by Davies and coworkers. With (R)-pantolactone as the chiral auxiliary, cyclopropanation of diazoester 144 with a range of alkenes provided c yield with diastereomeric excess at levels of 90% (equation 130)1... 

De Meijere and co-workers have reported on the reactions of the parent vinyldiazomethane and chlorinated vinyldiazomethanes with oxygenated dienes. Rhodium(II) acetate catalyzed decomposition of these vinyldiazomethanes in the presence of 2-siloxydienes proceeds in good overall yields (Scheme 15). Because the vinylcarbenoid does not contain the donor/acceptor combination of the carbenoids derived from vinyldiazoacetates, the stereoselectivity of the cyclopropanation is poor and mixtures of the [344] annulation products and the trans-divinylcyclopropanes are formed. 

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