Enamide precursors

Another example of how catalysis plays a key role in enabling our lives is in the synthesis of pharmaceuticals. Knowles s development, at Monsanto in the early 1970s, of the enantioselective hydrogenation of the enamide precursor to L-DOPA (used to treat Parkinson s disease), using a Rh-chiral phosphine catalyst (Section 3.5), led to a share in the Nobel prize. His colaureates, Noyori and Sharpless, have done much to inspire new methods in chiral synthesis based on metal catalysis. Indeed, the dramatic rise in the demand for chiral pharmaceutical products also fuelled an intense interest in alternative methodologies, which led to a new one-pot, enzymatic route to L-DOPA, using a tyrosine phenol lyase, that has been commercialized by Ajinomoto. 

Ecteinascidin 743 is a potent antitumor agent that was isolated from a marine tunicate. T. Fukuyama et al. applied the intramolecular Heck reaction as the key step in the assembly of the central bicyclo[3.3.1] ring system.Toward this end, the cyclic enamide precursor was exposed to 5 mol% of palladium catalyst and 20 mol% of a phosphine ligand in refluxing acetonitrile to afford the desired tricyclic intermediate in 83% isolated yield. 

However, almost all the known familiar a-amino acids can be prepared in this way since, at least in principle, an enamide precursor is possible. Evidently the polar carboxy and amide groups overwhelm any variation in the R group. Also, the carboxy- and the nitrogen-blocking groups can be varied extensively. Once again lady luck was with us, since if we had a choice where the catalyst would be useful, we could not have selected a more important area than the a-amino acids, the building blocks of the proteins. 

Two ruthenium complexes, binap 3.43-Ru(OCOR)2(R = Me,CF3) [892] and binap 3.43-RuX2 (X = Cl, Br, I) [893, 894], are quite useful. The acetate and trifluoroacetate complexes of 3.43 induce selective asymmetric hydrogenations of classes of prochiral olefins that are poorly selective with rhodium complexes. These classes include a,(3- or fcy-unsaturated acids and esters, ally alcohols, j3-acylaminoacrylates and enamide precursors of isoquinoline alkaloids [752, 853, 859, 881, 883, 895]. 

The pseudobenzylisoquinoline alkaloids are fairly widespread in nature, being found among members of Berberidaceae, Annonaceae, Fumariaceae, and Ranunculaceae. The biogenesis of the pseudobenzylisoquinoline alkaloids assumes their formation from protoberberinium salts by C-8—C-8a bond scission in a Baeyer-Villiger-type oxidative rearrangement to produce the enamides of type 73 and 74. These amides may be further biotransformed either to rugosinone (76) type alkaloids by hydrolytic N-deformylation followed by oxidation or to ledecorine (75) by enzymatic reduction. These transformations were corroborated by in vitro studies (80-82). It is suggested that enamide seco alkaloids may be precursors of aporphine alkaloids (80), on one hand, and of cularine alkaloids (77), on the other. 

The photocyclization of enamides has been widely employed in the construction of heterocyclic systems the N-acryloyl-2-aminopyridines 37, for example, are converted on irradiation to the lactams 38.36 Numerous benzylisoquinoline alkaloids have been prepared using this approach, and in particular, the syntheses of benzo[c]phenanthridine alkaloids have been reviewed.37 Thus, irradiation of the [Z]-l-ethylidene-2-benzoyltetra-hydroisoquinoline 39 affords the corresponding 8-oxoberberine 4038 competing photoisomerization to the E-isomer is observed but cyclization occurs only via the Z-isomer. Examples of syntheses of Amaryllidaceae and indole alkaloids have also been reported. In this way, the precursor 41 of ( )-lycoran has been obtained by oxidative cyclization of the enamide 42.39... 

The dynamic behavior of the model intermediate rhodium-phosphine 99, for the asymmetric hydrogenation of dimethyl itaconate by cationic rhodium complexes, has been studied by variable temperature NMR LSA [167]. The line shape analysis provides rates of exchange and activation parameters in favor of an intermo-lecular process, in agreement with the mechanism already described for bis(pho-sphinite) chelates by Brown and coworkers [168], These authors describe a dynamic behavior where two diastereoisomeric enamide complexes exchange via olefin dissociation, subsequent rotation about the N-C(olefinic) bond and recoordination. These studies provide insight into the electronic and steric factors that affect the activity and stereoselectivity for the asymmetric hydrogenation of amino acid precursors. 

Repetition of the reaction with DEAD as the dipolarophile furnished the desired cycloadduct 55 in 48% yield, but with 25% yield of the enamide 56 also being isolated. This was rationalized by invoking decomposition of the ylide precursor 57 to the (trimethylsilylmethyl)silyl amine 58, which undergoes subsequent addition to the highly reactive acetylene (Scheme 3.14). 

Intramolecular [4 + 2] cycloaddition reactions of enamides have provided a route to hydroindole and hydroquinoline ring systems (80JA3294,5274). In this work, the diene portion was initially masked as a 2-substituted 2,5-dihydrothiophene 1,1-dioxide. Thus, reaction of the acid chloride (312) with 3,4,5,6-tetrahydropyridine (311) afforded the masked enamido diene (313), which was converted to the enamido diene (314) upon brief refluxing in xylene. Thermolysis of (314) afforded the hydrolulolidine (315) in 45-55% yield. Additionally, (313) could be transformed to (315) directly by passage of a 1% solution in toluene through a vertical tube (600 °C oven temperature) (Scheme 67). The method was used to prepare a known precursor to aspidospermine. 

Another important entry to the skeletal framework of the alkaloids related to lycorine has involved the formation of the B ring from an ACD precursor by different arylation protocols. Although the first examples of these processes typically involved photocyclizations of substituted A-benzoyl indolines such as 158-160 and enamides such as 165-167, cyclizations of benzyne intermediates and electrochemical oxidative cyclizations have recently proved to be useful. Early workers in this area noted that when 158 was irradiated, it suffered... 

A class of chiral bisphosphines based on 3,4-bis(diphenylphosphino)pyrrolidines (9) has been developed by Degussa and the University of Munich. Rhodium-bisphosphine catalysts of this class can reduce a variety of enamides to chiral amino acid precursors with high enantioselectivities. These catalysts are extremely rapid and can operate with high S/C ratios (10,000-50,000) under moderately high hydrogen pressure (150-750 psig). Contrary to other rhodium catalysts that contain... 

An important class of compounds that are frequently used as building blocks in drugs is the P-amino acids. Here, the precursors are made from the P-keto esters by reaction with NH4OAc, followed by acylation with Ac20. These enamides can be made predominantly in either the E-44... 

Although the Rh-catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenations of prochiral enamides have been extensively studied and excellent results have been frequently achieved, the catalytic asymmetric hydrogenations of 2-arylacrylic acids have been less successful. Until recently most catalyst systems gave only moderate optical yields for the 2-arylpropionic acid products (77). An important breakthrough in the study of these reactions was reported by Noyori et al. By using Ru(BINAP)(OAc)2 as a catalyst precursor, these researchers obtained excellent optical yields in the asymmetric hydrogenation of 2-(6 -methoxy-2 -naphthyl)acrylic acid (72). 

Similarly, enamide 31 was shown to be a direct precursor of lennoxamine (32) (Scheme 12) [82],... 

Addition of electrophilic carbenes to enamines usually does not proceed with good efficiency, very likely because of the disturbance by the Lewis basic nitrogen 15). If however the less basic enamide derivatives are used as olefins, high conversions to donor-acceptor cyclopropanes are possible. Thus cyclic carbamate 245, which itself originates from an oxycyclopropane, gives the bicyclic compound 246 almost quantitatively. Its cleavage with aqueous base provides lactone 247 that could be coupled with tryptophyl bromide to afford 248, a direct precursor of the alkaloid eburnamoni-ne 105>. 

With the same catalyst precursor, attempts to synthesize seven-membered cyclic enamides via ring closing metathesis of N-protected 5-hexenyl enam-ines failed, and selectively led to the formation of six-membered cyclic enamides resulting from initial isomerization of the 5-hexenyl into a 4-hexenyl group followed by cyclization [47]. 

This reactivity of N-acylenamines 1 has opened up new possibilities for the use of enamides. in photochemical rearrangements2 as well as in acid-catalyzed cyclizations3,4, which lead to a variety of complex nitrogen-containing heterocycles from readily available simple precursors. These reactions have also been used to form a wide variety of natural products and polyfunctional compounds. Enamides can be also used as electrophilic reagents for amidoalkylation5,6, which can occur under certain conditions as a [4 + 2] cycloaddition to form 1,3-oxazinium heterocycles7. 

Many of these reactions occur with formation of V-acyliminium ions 2 as intermediates (equation 1), which give the enamides after elimination of the electrofuge E+ from / -carbon atom, or the V-acylimines by removal of R4 group from nitrogen atom. In that way, the V-acyliminium ions 2 appear not only as the intermediates in acid-catalyzed conversions of enamides3 but also as direct precursors of the latter. In other words, the chemistry of enamides and their V-acylimine tautomers is closely connected with V-acyliminium chemistry, a topic which has been reviewed comprehens-ively3,5-7,27-31. 

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