Electrophilic reactions aldol additions

Modem variants of the Mukaiyama aldol addition start from silyl enol ethers, not from enol ethers, and use an aldehyde instead of the acetal as the electrophile. Mukaiyama aldol additions of this kind have been included in the C,C coupling reactions that build the basic repertoire of modem synthetic chemistry and can even be performed in a catalytic enantioselective fashion. 

An aldol reaction is a reaction between two carbonyl compounds in which one carbonyl compound plays the role of a nucleophile while the other carbonyl compound acts as an electrophile. The term aldol reaction covers two types of reactions, aldol additions (see Section 13.3) and aldol condensations. The aldol reactions that lead to /i-hydroxycarbonyl compounds belong to the class of aldol additions. Aldol condensations start from the same substrates but result in a,/l-unsaturated carbonyl compounds (Figure 13.49). 

In Chapter 18, we saw that aldehydes and ketones are electrophiles and therefore react with nucleophiles. In the preceding sections of this chapter, we have seen that when a proton is removed from the a-carbon of an aldehyde or a ketone, the resulting anion is a nucleophile and therefore reacts with electrophiles. An aldol addition is a reaction in which both of these activities are observed One molecule of a carbonyl compound— after a proton is removed from an a-carbon— reacts as a nucleophile and attacks the electrophilic carbonyl carbon of a second molecule of the carbonyl compound. 

There are two distinct groups of aldolases. Type I aldolases, found in higher plants and animals, require no metal cofactor and catalyze aldol addition via Schiff base formation between the lysiae S-amino group of the enzyme and a carbonyl group of the substrate. Class II aldolases are found primarily ia microorganisms and utilize a divalent ziac to activate the electrophilic component of the reaction. The most studied aldolases are fmctose-1,6-diphosphate (FDP) enzymes from rabbit muscle, rabbit muscle adolase (RAMA), and a Zn " -containing aldolase from E. coli. In vivo these enzymes catalyze the reversible reaction of D-glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate [591-57-1] (G-3-P) and dihydroxyacetone phosphate [57-04-5] (DHAP). 

KDPG is a member of a yet unexplored group of aldolases that utilize pymvate or phosphoenol pymvate as the nucleophile in the aldol addition. They are quite tolerant of different electrophilic components and accept a large number of uimatural aldehydes (148). The reaction itself, however, is quite specific, generating a new stereogenic center at the C-4 position. 

These examples and those in Scheme 2.6 illustrate the key variables that determine the stereochemical outcome of aldol addition reactions using chiral auxiliaries. The first element that has to be taken into account is the configuration of the ring system that is used to establish steric differentiation. Then the nature of the TS, whether it is acyclic, cyclic, or chelated must be considered. Generally for boron enolates, reaction proceeds through a cyclic but nonchelated TS. With boron enolates, excess Lewis acid can favor an acyclic TS by coordination with the carbonyl electrophile. Titanium enolates appear to be somewhat variable but can be shifted to chelated TSs by use of excess reagent and by auxiliaries such as oxazolidine-2-thiones that enhance the tendency to chelation. Ultimately, all of the factors play a role in determining which TS is favored. 

Iminium ions are intermediates in a group of reactions that form ,( -unsaturated compounds having structures corresponding to those formed by mixed aldol addition followed by dehydration. These reactions are catalyzed by amines or buffer systems containing an amine and an acid and are referred to as Knoevenagel condensations,2U The reactive electrophile is probably the protonated form of the imine, since it is a more reactive electrophile than the corresponding carbonyl compound.212... 

As is the case for aldol addition, chiral auxiliaries and catalysts can be used to control stereoselectivity in conjugate addition reactions. Oxazolidinone chiral auxiliaries have been used in both the nucleophilic and electrophilic components under Lewis acid-catalyzed conditions. (V-Acyloxazolidinones can be converted to nucleophilic titanium enolates with TiCl3(0-/-Pr).320... 

It turns out that a reaction still occurs because the carbonyl group itself is an electrophile. As the enolate forms, it can attack the carbonyl group of another aldehyde or ketone molecule. This is an aldol reaction or aldol condensation, also called an aldol addition. 

Aldol addition and condensation reactions involving two different carbonyl compounds are called mixed aldol reactions. For these reactions to be useful as a method for synthesis, there must be some basis for controlling which carbonyl component serves as the electrophile and which acts as the enolate precursor. One of the most general mixed aldol condensations involves the use of aromatic aldehydes with alkyl ketones or aldehydes. Aromatic aldehydes are incapable of enolization and cannot function as the nucleophilic component. Furthermore, dehydration is especially favorable because the resulting enone is conjugated with the aromatic ring. 

Lithium Enolates. The control of mixed aldol additions between aldehydes and ketones that present several possible sites for enolization is a challenging problem. Such reactions are normally carried out by complete conversion of the carbonyl compound that is to serve as the nucleophile to an enolate, silyl enol ether, or imine anion. The reactive nucleophile is then allowed to react with the second reaction component. As long as the addition step is faster than proton transfer, or other mechanisms of interconversion of the nucleophilic and electrophilic components, the adduct will have the desired... 

Considerable effort has been devoted to finding Lewis acid or other catalysts that could induce high enantioselectivity in the Mukaiyama reaction. As with aldol addition reactions involving enolates, high diastereoselectivity and enantioselectivity requires involvement of a transition state with substantial facial selectivity with respect to the electrophilic reactant and a preferred orientation of the nucleophile. Scheme 2.4 shows some examples of enantioselective catalysts. 

The focus in this section is the electrophilic a-functionalization of 2,2-dimethyl-l,3-dioxan-5-one. Various reactions have been carried out, such as alkylations, aldol additions, Mannich reactions, and transition metal-catalyzed reactions. Conditions were described for diastereoselective transformations, or auxiliary controlled diastereoselective transformations, providing enantiomerically pure products, and enantioselectively catalyzed reactions using organo-catalysts. 

When carbonyl compounds are used as electrophiles reaction with 4-monosub-stituted-5(4//)-oxazolones affords substituted serines after subsequent hydrolytic ring opening of the initial aldol product. As an example, 4-methyl-2-phenyl-5(4//)-oxazolone 193, prepared from alanine, reacts with benzaldehyde in a base-catalyzed addition to give, after hydrolysis, a 3 1 mixture of threo- and... 

These reactions are divided into two sections. In the former, representative examples of organic electrophiles, which can be used in reactions with magnesium ketone enolates, are summarized. The second section shows that magnesium ketone enolates can be employed as interesting alternatives to their more known lithium counterparts in aldol addition reactions. This part is discussed in terms of regio- and stereoselectivity. 

The key step in aldol addition requires an electron-pair donor (nucleophile) and an electron-pair acceptor (electrophile). In the formation of 3-hydroxybutanal or 11, both roles are played by one kind of molecule, but there is no reason why this should be a necessary condition for reaction. Many kinds of mixed aldol additions are possible. 

Claisen condensations can be carried out between two different esters but, because there are four possible products, mixtures often result. Less difficulty is encountered if one of the esters has no a hydrogen and reacts readily with a carbanion according to Equations 18-11 and 18-12. The reaction then has considerable resemblance to the mixed aldol additions discussed in Section 17-3C. Among the useful esters without a hydrogens, and with the requisite electrophilic reactivity, are those of benzenecarboxyiic, methanoic, ethanedioic, and carbonic acids. Several practical examples of mixed Claisen condensations are shown in Equations 18-14 through 18-16 (all of the products exist to the extent of 10% or so as the enol forms) ... 

A wide range of donor ketones, including acetone, butanone, 2-pentanone, cyclopentanone, cyclohexanone, hydroxyacetone, and fluoroacetone with an equally wide range of acceptor aromatic and aliphatic aldehydes were shown to serve as substrates for the antibody-catalyzed aldol addition reactions (Chart 2, Table 8B2.6). It is interesting to note that the aldol addition reactions of functionalized ketones such as hydroxyacetone occurs regioselectively at the site of functionaliztion to give a-substitutcd-fi-hydroxy ketones. The nature of the electrophilic and nucleophilic substrates utilized in this process as well as the reaction conditions complement those that are used in transition-metal and enzymatic catalysis. 

In origin, the Mannich reaction is a three-component reaction between an eno-lizable CH-acidic carbonyl compound, an amine, and an aldehyde producing / -aminocarbonyl compounds. Such direct Mannich reactions can encompass severe selectivity problems since both the aldehyde and the CH-acidic substrate can often act as either nucleophile or electrophile. Aldol addition and condensation reactions can be additional competing processes. Therefore preformed electrophiles (imines, iminium salts, hydrazones) or nucleophiles (enolates, enamines, enol ethers), or both, are often used, which allows the assignment of a specific role to each car-... 

Michael-aldol reaction as an alternative to the Morita-Baylis-Hillman reaction 14 recent results in conjugate addition of nitroalkanes to electron-poor alkenes 15 asymmetric cyclopropanation of chiral (l-phosphoryl)vinyl sulfoxides 16 synthetic methodology using tertiary phosphines as nucleophilic catalysts in combination with allenoates or 2-alkynoates 17 recent advances in the transition metal-catalysed asymmetric hydrosilylation of ketones, imines, and electrophilic C=C bonds 18 Michael additions catalysed by transition metals and lanthanide species 19 recent progress in asymmetric organocatalysis, including the aldol reaction, Mannich reaction, Michael addition, cycloadditions, allylation, epoxidation, and phase-transfer catalysis 20 and nucleophilic phosphine organocatalysis.21... 

The mechanisms for metal-catalyzed and organocatalyzed direct aldol addition reactions differ one from another, and resemble the mode of action of the type 11 and type I aldolases, respectively. Some metal-ligand complexes, for example, 1-4 and 9 are considered to have a bifunctional character [22], embodying within the same molecular frame a Lewis acidic site and a Bronsted basic site. Whereas base would be required to form the transient enolate species as an active form of the carbonyl donor, the Lewis acid site would coordinate the acceptor aldehyde carbonyl, increasing its electrophilicity. By this means, both transition state stabilization and substrates preorganization would be provided (see Scheme 5 for a proposal). 

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