Dehydrobromination, base collidine

Until recently, pyridine-type bases have been commonly used to produce conjugated enones from 2-halo ketones yields are usually poor °° and these reactions are frequently accompanied by rearrangement, reduction and salt formation. Thus, Warnhoff found that dehydrobromination of (28) with 2,4-lutidine gave a mixture of (29), (30) and (31) in the ratio 55 25 20. Collidine gave a ratio of 38 25 37, whereas pyridine gave mainly the salt (32). 

Dehydrobromination with a base such as collidine then establishes the 1,4-diene function to yield fluoroprednisolone acetate (19-3) [13]. 

Several attempts have been made, especially in recent years, to oxidize saturated to unsaturated azlactones. 64 The oxidation of saturated azlactone 13 with DDQ or o-chloranil in the presence of collidine as a weak base affords the unsaturated azlactone 14 in 40-50% yield (Scheme 5). Breitholle and Stammer 65 reported the preparation of unsaturated azlactone 16 by dehydrobromination of the bromopseudoazlactone 15 (Scheme 5). The pseudoazlactones derived from Ala and Abu tend to dibrominate, but careful reaction conditions allowed their isolation in acceptable yields. 65 This procedure is applicable to the preparation of derivatives of AAla, AAbu, AVal, and ALeu. 66 ... 

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