Deoxygenation Mechanisms

6- Dideoxysugars, sometimes along with 2,3,6-trideoxysugars, are frequently found in secondary metabolites of microorganisms, especially in those produced by the genus Streptomyces. The conclusion that the pathway leading to 

1 ueoxygenation ocurs in both cases under inversion, 

Glycosyl Transfer Steps and the Formation of Oligosaccharide Chains 

Exact Stages of Glycosyl Transfer Steps in Biosynthetic Sequences of Polyketide Oligodeoxysaccharides 

Although there are remarkable exceptions (see below), it has nonetheless often been shown that glycosyl transfer happens always at the very end of a biosynthetic sequence. For example, the biosynthesis of aclacinomycin A (37), a less cardiotoxic anthracycline than doxorubicin (30), proceeds via aklavinone (38) 

---

It was found that 1,2,4-triazine 4-oxides 55 are active enough to react with cyanamide under basic conditions according to the deoxygenative mechanism to form 5-cyanamino-l,2,4-triazines 73 (00TZV1128). This reaction seems to be facilitated by the easy aromatization of cr -adducts by the Elcb elimination of water. 

Scheme 1. Deoxygenation mechanisms of highly deoxygenated sugars are still widely unknown...

Deoxygenation can be achieved by mechanical and/or chemical means. Both methods are commonly used on conjunction, the chemical reagents being employed as scavengers for the residual amount of oxygen left after mechanical treatment. 

The mechanical deaeration oxygen removal process is not 100% efficient, however, and all boiler FW must be further deoxygenated by some form of chemical oxygen scavenger. 

Unexpectedly, neither direct complexation nor the deoxygenated complexes 95 or 96136,137 were observed in the reaction of diphenylthiirene oxide (18a) with iron nonacarbonyl. Instead, the red organosulfur-iron complex 97138 was isolated12, which required the cleavage of three carbon-sulfur bonds in the thiirene oxide system (see equation 33). The mechanism of the formation of 97 from 18a is as yet a matter of speculation. 

Meinwald and coworkers71 studied the chemistry of naphtho[l, 8-bc]thiete and its S-oxides. The reaction of the sulphone 2 with LAH (equation 29) is of particular and direct relevance to this section since it is different from the reductions that have been discussed thus far, because the major reaction pathway is now cleavage of an S—C bond, rather than a deoxygenation of the sulphur atom. The major product (equation 29) was isolated in 65% yield two minor products accounted for a further 15% yield. One of the minor products is 1-methylthionaphthalene and this was most probably produced by an initial reduction of the strained 1,8-naphthosulphone, 2, to the thiete, which was then cleaved to the thiol and subsequently methylated. Meinwald also showed71 that the thiete was subject to cleavage by LAH as well as that both molecules were susceptible to attack and cleavage by other nucleophiles, notably methyllithium. These reactions are in fact very useful in attempts to assess a probable mechanism for the reduction of sulphones by LAH and this will be discussed at the end of this section. 

The low reactivity of alkyl and/or phenyl substituted organosilanes in reduction processes can be ameliorated in the presence of a catalytic amount of alkanethiols. The reaction mechanism is reported in Scheme 5 and shows that alkyl radicals abstract hydrogen from thiols and the resulting thiyl radical abstracts hydrogen from the silane. This procedure, which was coined polarity-reversal catalysis, has been applied to dehalogenation, deoxygenation, and desulfurization reactions.For example, 1-bromoadamantane is quantitatively reduced with 2 equiv of triethylsilane in the presence of a catalytic amount of ferf-dodecanethiol. 

Unsymmetrical alkenes can be prepared from a mixture of two ketones, if one is in excess. " The mechanism consists of initial coupling of two radical species to give a 1,2-dioxygen compound (a titanium pinacolate), which is then deoxygenated. " ... 

Co(TPP) has been demonstrated to act as a catalyst for the electrocarboxylation of benzyl chloride and butyl bromide with CO - to give PhCHiCfOiOCH Ph and Bu0C(0)C(0)0Bu, respectively. The propo.sed mechanism involved Co(TPP)R and [Co(TPP-N-R) as intermediates (the latter detected by spectroscopy) in the catalytic production of free R or R-, which then reacted directly with Co(TPP) precipitated on graphite foil has been successfully used for the determination of organic halides, including DDT and 1,2,3,4,5,6-hexachlorocyclohexane (lindane), to sub-ppm level in aqueous solution. Deoxygenation of the solutions is not required, and the technique is moderately insensitive to the ionic composition of the solution. ... 

The structure of the reagent, the mechanism of epoxide opening, deoxygenations, dimerizations and intermolecular additions will be discussed first before covering the preparatively much more important cyclization reactions [36]. 

---