Dihydropyranone products, formation

Reaction of a chiral A-heterocyclic carbene catalyst and a,/ -unsaturated aldehyde gives , -unsaturated acyl azolium that participates in enantioselective annulation via a Coates-Claisen rearrangement that invokes the formation of a hemiacetal before a sigmatropic rearrangement to give dihydropyranone products (Scheme 14)7 ... 

A survey of Wacker-type etherification reactions reveals many reports on the formation of five- and six-membered oxacycles using various internal oxygen nucleophiles. For example, phenols401,402 and aliphatic alcohols401,403-406 have been shown to be competent nucleophiles in Pd-catalyzed 6- TZ /fl-cyclization reactions that afford chromenes (Equation (109)) and dihydropyranones (Equation (110)). Also effective is the carbonyl oxygen or enol of a 1,3-diketone (Equation (111)).407 In this case, the initially formed exo-alkene is isomerized to a furan product. A similar 5-m -cyclization has been reported using an Ru(n) catalyst derived in situ from the oxidative addition of Ru3(CO)i2... 

The compounds covered in this section include dihydropyranones, tetrahydropyranones and their benzologues (dihydrocoumarins, chromanones and isochromanones). The area of greatest interest is undoubtedly the chromanones because of their relationship to a number of natural products and presumably also because of their ease of formation, stability and value as precursors of other heterocycles. Tetrahydropyran-2-ones comprise one of those nebulous areas of heterocyclic chemistry and usually feature in text books as 5-lactones under derivatives of hydroxy acids. 

The origin of dihydropyran 123 can be traced to the known dihydropyranone 124, derived from commercially available acetylacetaldehyde dimethylacetal 125. Although the oxygen at C4 of dihydropyran 123 is not present in the natural product, its role was to facilitate a stereocontrolled epoxidation reaction as well as the stereoselective formation of the Q-C-glycoside. Its presence also... 

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