Dynamic kinetic asymmetric racemic desymmetrization

The asymmetric processes discussed so far in this chapter have focused on reactions that create non-racemic, chiral products from achiral reagents by selective reaction at one prochiral face or position over the other. However, these principles can also be applied to reactions that separate enantiomers of an existing racemic mixture, channel both enantiomers of such a mixture to a single enantiomeric product, or that select between reaction at one of two diastereotopic functional groups in an achiral substrate. These reactions are also synthetically valuable and are called kinetic resolutions, dynamic kinetic resolutions, and desymmetrizations. An understanding of these reactions draws from the principles established so far in this chapter, but they also require some additional principles to be established that apply in a specific way to these classes of asymmetric transformations. Thus, the remainder of Chapter 14 introduces the fundamentals of these classes of asymmetric catalysis. 

The enzyme-catalyzed kinetic asymmetric transformation (KAT) of a diastereomeric 1 1 syn anti mixture is limited to a maximum theoretical yield of 25% of one enantiomer. This important drawback has been overcome by the combination of the actions of a ruthenium complex and a lipase in a dynamic kinetic asymmetric transformation (DYKAT), the desymmetrization of racemic or diastereomeric mixtures involving interconverting diastereomeric intermediates, implying different equilibration rates of the stereoisomers. Thus, this strategy allows the preparation of optically active diols, widely employed in organic and medicinal chemistry, as they are an important source of chiral auxiliaries and ligands and they can be easily employed as precursors of much other functionality. 

The most powerful approaches, which can be used with several different enzyme systems, lead to a single enantiomer as the product in high yield and do not rely on a classic resolution approach in which the unwanted enantiomer is discarded. These approaches include dynamic kinetic resolutions, der-acemizations, and asymmetric and desymmetrization reactions (49, 50). In some cases, a chemical catalyst may be available to recycle the unwanted isomer in the same reactor vide infra). It is sometimes possible to racemize the unwanted isomer of the substrate and then to perform the reaction again (51). 

A dynamic kinetic resolution extends the high yield advantage of desymmeUiza-tions to racemic substrates. A dynamic kinetic resolution is a kinetic resolution combined with rapid in situ racemization of the substrate. The requirements for a dynamic kinetic resolution are (1) the substrate must racemize at least as fast as the subsequent enzymatic reaction, (2) the product must not racemize, and (3) as in any asymmetric synthesis, the enzymic reaction must be highly stereoselective. The equations relating product enantiomeric purity and enantioselectivity are the same as those for desymmetrizations. 

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