Desymmetrization Diols

The groups of Sigman and Stoltz have concurrently published the palladium-catalyzed oxidative kinetic resolution of secondary alcohols using molecular oxygen as the stoichiometric oxidant. Both communications also described a single example of a diol desymmetrization using a palladium catalyst in the presence of (—(-sparteine [Eqs. (10.42) ° and (10.43) ] ... 

Selectivity in enantiotopos-differentiating acylation and phosphorylation of meso-diols can rival that of enzymes. The organocatalysts employed include chiral phosphines, chiral diamines, chiral DMAP derivatives and peptides identified from combinatorial libraries. The highest selectivity in meso diol desymmetrization has been achieved with a planar-chiral Fu catalyst. It seems the substrate scope of this process is not yet broadly explored. Because of their sequential variability it is to be... 

A palladium-mediated, ligand-controlled C2 diol desymmetrization gave the desired tetrahydrofuran, which was precursor for the F-ring of halichondrin B <02013411>. 

Subsequent to the development of the (salen)Cr-catalyzed desymmetrization of meso-epoxides with azide (Scheme 7.3), Jacobsen discovered that the analogous (salen)Co(n) complex 6 promoted the enantioselective addition of benzoic acids to meso-epoxides to afford valuable monoprotected C2-symmetric diols (Scheme 7.15) [26], Under the reaction conditions, complex 6 served as a precatalyst for the (salen) Co(iii)-OBz complex, which was fonned in situ by aerobic oxidation. While the enantioselectivity was moderate for certain substrates, the high crystallinity of the products allowed access to enantiopure materials by simple recrystallization. 

Enzymatic desymmetrization of prochiral or meso-alcohols to yield enantiopure building blocks is a powerful tool in the synthesis of natural products. For example, a synthesis ofconagenin, an immunomodulator isolated from a Streptomyces, involved two enzymatic desymmetrizations [149]. The syn-syn triad of the add moiety was prepared via a stereoselective acylation of a meso-diol, whereas the amine fragment was obtained by the PLE-catalyzed hydrolysis of a prochiral malonate (Figure 6.56). 

Various biocatalytic options have been presented for the desymmetrization of meso-diols to chiral hydroxyl-ketones. A particularly facile system is represented by... 

Also, desymmetrization of prochiral hydroxyalkylphosphine P-boranes was successfully performed using similar reagents and conditions. In the case of bis(hydroxymethyl)phenylphosphine P-borane 87, both its acetylation and hydrolysis of the diacetyl derivative 89 gave good results, although in addition to the expected monoacetate 88, the diol 87 and diacetate 89 were always present in the reaction mixture (Equation 42). °°... 

The catalytic enantioselective desymmetrization of meso compounds is a powerful tool for the construction of enantiomerically enriched functionalized products." Meso cyclic allylic diol derivatives are challenging substrates for the asymmetric allylic substitution reaction owing to the potential competition of several reaction pathways. In particular, S 2 and 5n2 substitutions can occur, and both with either retention or inversion of the stereochemistry. In the... 

Trost and co-workers have explored asymmetric transition metal-catalyzed allylic alkylations. Details on this subject have been well reviewed by Trost and others.90 With the use of asymmetric palladium-catalyzed desymmetrization of meso-2-ene-l,4-diols, cw-l,4-dibenzoy-loxy-2-cyclopentene can be converted to the enantiometrically pure cA-4-tert-butoxycar-bamoyl-l-methoxycarbonyl-2-cyclopentene.91 The product is a useful and general building block for synthesis of carbocyclic analogs of nucleosides as presented in Scheme 5.12. 

The new heterocyclic derivative 130 has been shown to be an efficient chiral auxilliary for asymmetric desymmetrization of cyclic meso-l,2-diols via diastereoselective acetal cleavage . 

With a good route to the key meso diol 128 in hand, the authors turned their attention to desymmetrization, using the known asymmetric hydrolysis of meso diacetates by Lipase AK (Scheme 23). The meso diol 128 was first converted to diacetate 140, and then hydrolyzed with Lipase AK to cleave selectively one of the two acetates, producing chiral hydroxyester 141. Oxidation, cleavage of the acetate, and lactonization yielded the (3S,4.R) lactone 129. The corresponding lactol (3S,4 )-130 was found to be the enantiomer of the compound produced in the HLADH synthesis. 

By performing the desymmetrization on a prochiral diol, a far more efficient asymmetric biocatalytic route was subsequently developed. Enzyme screening found that... 

Benzyloxy-2-methylpropane-l,2-diol, a desymmetrized form of 2-methylpropane-1,2,3-triol with its terminal hydroxy being protected as a benzyl ether, was prepared using the B. subtilis epoxide hydrolase-catalyzed enantioselective hydrolysis of the racemic benzyloxymethyl-l-methyloxirane readily available from methallyl chloride and benzyl alcohol. The preparation of the racemic epoxide, a key intermediate, was described in Procedures 1 and 2 (Sections 5.6.1 and 5.6.2), its overall yield being 78 %. The combined yield of enantiomerically pure (7 )-3-benzyloxy-2-methylpropane-l,2-diol was 74 % from ( )-benzyloxymethyl-l-methyloxirane, as described in Procedures 3-5 (Sections 5.6.3 and 5.6.5), with the overall procedures leading to the biocatalytic dihydroxylation of benzyl methallyl ether . 

The 6,8-dioxabicyclo[3.2.1]octane skeleton has been a common structural subunit in natural products. A conceptually new strategy affording these structures is described by Burk et al. [Eqs. (6.67) and (6.68)]. For the syntheses of (+)-exo-brevicomin, they used desymmetrization of triene 97, derived from diol 96 with C2 symmetry, via ring-closing metathesis. Enantiomerically enriched (- -)-ent/o-brevicomm... 

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