Epoxides deprotonation

The relatively easy lithiation of cyclic ethers is at the origin of the susceptibility of THF to attack by organolithiums (section 1.2). Until recently lithiated cyclic ethers had never been trapped before they decomposed. However, Hodgson has shown that. y-BuLi in the presence of (-)-sparteine in hexane at -90 °C is able to deprotonate epoxides to yield organolithiums 26 which may be deuterated to give 27 in 70% yield. An internal Me3SiCl quench (in other words, Me3SiCl present in the reaction mixture as the deprotonation is carried out) yielded silyl epoxides 28,25 but quenches with external electrophiles (that is, electrophiles added after the lithiation step is complete) other than D20 failed.26... 

Lithium amides derived from secondary amines like lithium diisopro-pylamide (1) appear to be strong enough bases to deprotonate epoxides, ketones, etc. However, when 1, which is a non-chiral base, deprotonates the non-chiral epoxide cyclohexene oxide (2), equal amounts of the two enantiomeric products (5)- and (/ )-cyclohex-2-enol (3) are formed in the abstraction of a proton from carbon 2 and 5, respectively, with accompanying opening of the epoxide ring (Scheme 1). Thus, none of the two enantiomeric products is formed in enantiomeric excess (ee), i.e., the reaction shows no stereoselectivity (Scheme 1). 

In a lithium amide promoted deprotonation, one lithium amide molecule is consumed for each deprotonated epoxide molecule. Since chiral hthium amides are expensive reagents, there is a strong desire to develop less costly synthetic procedures for stereoselective deprotonations. Catalysis has the potential to solve the problem. What are needed are bulk bases capable of regenerating the chiral hthium amide from the chiral diamine produced in the deprotonation reaction. There have been some attempts along this line, e.g., by Asami and co-workers, who used the non-chiral hthium amide LDA as bulk base and the chiral hthium amide 4 as catalyst [9,12,39-41]. However, the stereoselectivity was considerably lower than what had been achieved in absence of the bulk base, i.e., under stoichiometric conditions. Most likely, the decreased stereoselectivity in the presence of bulk LDA is due to competing deprotonation by LDA to yield racemic product alcohol. The situation is illustrated in Scheme 9. 

The proton of terminal acetylenes is acidic (pKa= 25), thus they can be deprotonated to give acetylide anions which can undergo substitution reactions with alkyl halides, carbonyls, epoxides, etc. to give other acetylenes. 

Potassium Amides. The strong, extremely soluble, stable, and nonnucleophilic potassium amide base (42), potassium hexamethyldisilazane [40949-94-8] (KHMDS), KN [Si(CH2]2, pX = 28, has been developed and commercialized. KHMDS, ideal for regio/stereospecific deprotonation and enolization reactions for less acidic compounds, is available in both THF and toluene solutions. It has demonstrated benefits for reactions involving kinetic enolates (43), alkylation and acylation (44), Wittig reaction (45), epoxidation (46), Ireland-Claison rearrangement (47,48), isomerization (49,50), Darzen reaction (51), Dieckmann condensation (52), cyclization (53), chain and ring expansion (54,55), and elimination (56). 

Work in the mid-1970s demonstrated that the vitamin K-dependent step in prothrombin synthesis was the conversion of glutamyl residues to y-carboxyglutamyl residues. Subsequent studies more cleady defined the role of vitamin K in this conversion and have led to the current theory that the vitamin K-dependent carboxylation reaction is essentially a two-step process which first involves generation of a carbanion at the y-position of the glutamyl (Gla) residue. This event is coupled with the epoxidation of the reduced form of vitamin K and in a subsequent step, the carbanion is carboxylated (77—80). Studies have provided thermochemical confirmation for the mechanism of vitamin K and have shown the oxidation of vitamin KH2 (15) can produce a base of sufficient strength to deprotonate the y-position of the glutamate (81—83). 

The dianions derived from furan- and thiophene-carboxylic acids by deprotonation with LDA have been reacted with various electrophiles (Scheme 64). The oxygen dianions reacted efficiently with aldehydes and ketones but not so efficiently with alkyl halides or epoxides. The sulfur dianions reacted with allyl bromide, a reaction which failed in the case of the dianions derived from furancarboxylic acids, and are therefore judged to be the softer nucleophiles (81JCS(Pl)1125,80TL505l). 

The cleavage reaction occurs in three steps O protonation of the epoxide, Sn2 nucleophilic attack on the protonated epoxide, and deprotonation of the ring-opened product. Draw the complete mechanism. How many intermediates are there Which step determines diol stereochemistry ... 

The deprotonation of 4,5-dimethylthiazole and addition of the resulting anion to aldehydes was demonstrated as early as 1948 (48HCA652) and 2-lithiothiazoles were later shown to react with aldehydes, ketones, methyl iodide, and epoxides... 

An a ,/3-epoxycarboxylic ester (also called glycidic ester) 3 is formed upon reaction of a a-halo ester 2 with an aldehyde or ketone 1 in the presence of a base such as sodium ethoxide or sodium amide. Mechanistically it is a Knoevenagel-type reaction of the aldehyde or ketone 1 with the deprotonated a-halo ester to the a-halo alkoxide 4, followed by an intramolecular nucleophilic substitution reaction to give the epoxide 3 ... 

The first attempt at a catalytic asymmetric sulfur ylide epoxidation was by Fur-ukawa s group [5]. The catalytic cycle was formed by initial alkylation of a sulfide (14), followed by deprotonation of the sulfonium salt 15 to form an ylide 16 and... 

When lithiated, the ring strain of the three-membered heterocycle remains important, and this strain, combined with a weakening of the a-C-O bond, due to its greater polarization, make metalated epoxides highly electrophilic species [2], They react with strong nucleophiles (often the base that was used to perform the a-deprotonation) to give olefins following the elimination of M2O (Scheme 5.2, Path B), a process often referred to as reductive alkylation . 

In all examples of enantioselective deprotonation of meso-epoxides with organo-... 

Molander and Mautner demonstrated that deprotonation of cis-a, 3-epoxysilane 150 with s-BuLi/TMEDA was complete in 10 minutes, whereas the corresponding trows-isomer 150 required 4 hours [56]. Similarly, treatment with butyraldehyde was more efficient with cis-151 (Scheme 5.35), which could also be trapped with a wide variety of other carbonyl-containing electrophiles. The results demonstrated that lithiated epoxides cis- and trons-151 were configurationally stable at -116 °C for periods of up to 4 hours. Only in the case of cis-151 (t-butyl = n-octyl) was the lithiated epoxysilane found to be configurationally unstable. 

The use of an ester as an anion-stabilizing group for a lithiated epoxide was demonstrated by Eisch and Galle (Table 5.5, Entry 11). This strategy has been extended to a,P-epoxy-y-butyrolactone 191, which could be deprotonated with LDA and trapped in situ with chlorotrimethylsilane to give 192, which was used in a total synthesis of epolactaene (Scheme 5.45) [69], The use of a lactone rather than a... 

Florio et al. have employed heteroaromatic rings as organyl-stabilizing groups for metalated aziridines as well as for metalated epoxides. Regioselective deprotonation of aziridine 246 with n-BuLi, followed by addition of Mel, gave aziridine 247 (Scheme 5.62) [88]. 

Direct deprotonation/electrophile trapping of simple aziridines is also possible. Treatment of a range of N-Bus-protected terminal aziridines 265 with LTMP in the presence ofMe3SiCl in THF at-78 °C stereospecifically gave trans-a, 3-aziridinylsi-lanes 266 (Scheme 5.67) [96]. By increasing the reaction temperature (to 0 °C) it was also possible to a-silylate a (3-disubstituted aziridine one should note that attempted silylation of the analogous epoxide did not provide any of the desired product [81],... 

Chiral sulfonium salts derived from oxathianes have been developed for stoichiometric epoxidation reactions. The sulfonium salts were deprotonated and allowed to react with a, 3-unsaturated aldehydes to give trons-vinylepoxides with excellent ees and transxis ratios (Scheme 9.16b) [76]. The yields were generally high [75], and the best results were obtained with Ar = 4-OMePh. 

Metzner and co-workers reported a one-pot epoxidation reaction in which a chiral sulfide, an allyl halide, and an aromatic aldehyde were allowed to react to give a trons-vinylepoxide (Scheme 9.16c) [77]. This is an efficient approach, as the sulfonium salt is formed in situ and deprotonated to afford the corresponding ylide, and then reacts with the aldehyde. The sulfide was still required in stoichiometric amounts, however, as the catalytic process was too slow for synthetic purposes. The yields were good and the transxis ratios were high when Ri H, but the enantioselectivities were lower than with the sulfur ylides discussed above. 

This method has been made more general by use of modern reagents low temperatures and the strong hindered base i-Pr NLi allow the deprotonation of many nitriles and their capture by a variety of epoxides. Acid hydrolysis gives lactones,... 

Z-vinyl iodide was obtained by hydroboration and protonolysis of an iodoalkyne. The two major fragments were coupled by a Suzuki reaction at Steps H-l and H-2 between a vinylborane and vinyl iodide to form the C(ll)-C(12) bond. The macrocyclization was done by an aldol addition reaction at Step H-4. The enolate of the C(2) acetate adds to the C(3) aldehyde, creating the C(2)-C(3) bond and also establishing the configuration at C(3). The final steps involve selective deprotonation and oxidation at C(5), deprotection at C(3) and C(7), and epoxidation. 

To account for stereochemical results for the epoxidation of allyl alcohols, a slightly different intermediate has been proposed as shown in Fig. 6.9.16 The authors propose an intermediate (A) analogous to the intermediate in peracid oxidations. A small molecule of alcohol or water is coordinated to Ti with deprotonation and another is coordinatively ligated to Ti without deprotonation to achieve a pentacoordinated ligand sphere. During epoxidation, the allyl alcohol substrate is held in position by a hydrogen bond. 

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