Enamines iminium ion-enamine activation

Scheme 42.16 Asymmetric organocatalytic triple cascade by way of an enamine-iminium ion-enamine activation of aldehydes. Protocol point the minor diastereomer was determined as the 5-epimerof 59 all substrates added at the outset of the reaction.

Activation of Michael Acceptors by Iminium Ion Formation, Activation of Carbonyl Donors by Enamine Formation... 

Barbas, one of the pioneers of enamine catalysis, has incorporated iminium ion intermediates in complex heterodomino reactions. One particularly revealing example that uses the complementary activity of both iminium ion and enamine intermediates is shown in Fig. 12 [188]. Within this intricate catalytic cycle the catalyst, L-proline (58), is actively involved in accelerating two iminium ion catalysed transformations a Knoevenagel condensation and a retro-Michael/Michael addition sequence, resulting in epimerisation. 

Hong and co-workers have described a formal [3-t-3] cycloaddition of a,P-unsaturated aldehydes using L-proline as the catalyst (Scheme 72) [225], Although the precise mechanism of this reaction is unclear a plausible explanation involves both iminium ion and enamine activation of the substrates and was exploited in the asymmetric synthesis of (-)-isopulegol hydrate 180 and (-)-cubebaol 181. This strategy has also been extended to the trimerisation of acrolein in the synthesis of montiporyne F [226],... 

The MacMillan catalysts (42, 45), the Jorgensen catalyst (51), and proline itself can promote Michael additions by iminium ion formation with the acceptor enal or enone (A, Scheme 4.22). Secondary amines can also activate a carbonyl donor by enamine formation (Scheme 4.22, B) [36, 37]. 

This catalytic cascade was first realized using propanal, nitrostyrene and cinnamaldehyde in the presence of catalytic amounts of (9TMS-protected diphenylprolinol ((.S )-71,20 mol%), which is capable of catalyzing each step of this triple cascade. In the first step, the catalyst (S)-71 activates component A by enamine formation, which then selectively adds to the nitroalkene B in a Michael-type reaction (Hayashi et al. 2005). The following hydrolysis liberates the catalyst, which is now able to form the iminium ion of the a, 3-unsaturated aldehyde C to accomplish in the second step the conjugate addition of the nitroalkane (Prieto et al. 2005). In the subsequent third step, a further enamine reactivity of the proposed intermediate leads to an intramolecular aldol condensation. Hydrolysis returns the catalyst for further cycles and releases the desired tetrasubstituted cyclohexene carbaldehyde 72 (Fig. 8) (Enders and Hiittl 2006). 

The process mechanism as shown in Figure 2.23 consists of an initial activation of the aldehyde (66) by the catalyst [(5)-67] with the formation of the corresponding chiral enamine, which then, selectively, adds to nitroalkene (65) in a Michael-type reaction. The following hydrolysis liberates the catalyst, which forms the iminium ion of the a,(3-unsaturated aldehyde (62) to accomplish the conjugate addition with the nitroalkane A. In the third step, another enamine activation of the intermediate B leads to an intramolecular aldol condensation via C. Finally, the hydrolysis of it returns the catalyst and releases the desired chiral tetra-substituted cyclohexene carbaldehyde (68). 

Alternatively, a thermal activation of the starting material I would follow the reverse course of its synthesis to furnish cation XVII, which would then undergo a similar spiro cyclization by way of enamine XVIII. The hydrolysis of the ensuing iminium ion would lead directly to the key intermediate XV. 

This proline-catalysed aldol proceeds via initial formation of an enamine with the donor component. This enamine then reacts with the re-face of the acceptor through a closed-transition state, as depicted in Figure 7.4, to give the anti-product as the major diastereomer. The proline also activates the acceptor by hydrogen bonding within this ensemble and thus plays a bifunctional role in the reaction. The resulting iminium ion is then hydrolysed to close the catalytic cycle. 

It has to be pointed out that simple enolizable aldehydes and ketones, which are not acidic enough compounds to be directly used as pro-nucleophiles in this context, can nevertheless be employed as Michael donors in the reaction with enals or enones, which have been previously activated as the corresponding iminium ion, but their use requires prior activation via enamine activation. In these cases, it is usually proposed that the amine catalyst is involved in a dual activation profile interacting with both the Michael donor and the acceptor, although the enamine activation of the pro-nucleophile is mandatory for the reaction to occur, the activation of the acceptor being of less relevance in most cases. For these reasons, this chemistry has been covered in Chapter 2. 

There is also another similar case in which 5-oxohexanal was employed as functionalized Michael donor undergoing Michael addition/intramolecular aldol reaction with aromatic enals (Scheme 7.3), which also ended up with a final dehydration step leading to the formation of functionalized cyclohexenes. Under the optimized reaction conditions, the final compounds were obtained in moderate yields but with excellent enantioselect vities and as single diaster-eoisomers. It should be pointed out that, from the mechanistic point of view, a dual activation of the 5-oxohexanal via enamine formation) and the a,p-unsaturated aldehyde via iminium ion formation) might operate in this case in the catalytic cycle, although no mechanistic proposal was provided by the authors. 

This dual enamine/iminium activation profile in cascade Michael/aldol reactions can also be found even in some early reports, mostly focused on the self-dimerization of enals catalyzed by proline or analogues derived thereof, which generally proceeded with low enantioselect vities. There is not a clear and definitive mechanistic pathway confirmed for these reactions, although the most widely accepted proposal for the dimerization of enals (Scheme 7.4) ° involved sequential activation of one molecule of the substrate as a dienamine (Michael donor) and another molecule as iminium ion (Michael acceptor). 

However, it is in this context where the use of primary amines as catalysts demonstrates the high performance of this concept. As has already been mentioned in Chapter 2, primary amines are much more efficient catalysts for the activation of ketones than the corresponding secondary amines due to the formation of a less sterically congested enamine or iminium ion and also because of the more efficient geometry control in their formation. For example, primary amine 28a was found to be able to activate a-enolizable enones toward... 

Aside from enamine activation to enhance the nucleophilicity of the carbonyl, proline can also interact with the carbonyl to increase electrophilicity via formation of an iminium ion. A common reaction where this reactivity mode is observed is the Diels-Alder reaction. Figure 5.7 contrasts the difference in iminium and enamine activations to form diene and dienophile... 

The combination of iminium activation and IV-heterocyclic carbene or iminium ion and enamine organocatalytic activation was developed byZanardi and coworkers. Cyclohexenylidene nitriles functioned as substrates for formation of two different products according to reactions conditions (Scheme 8.38). ... 

Even though the use of (S)-proline (1) for the synthesis of the Wieland-Miescher ketone, a transformation now known as the Hajos-Parrish-Eder-Sauer-Wiechert reaetion, was reported in the early 1970s, aminocatalysis - namely the catalysis promoted by the use of chiral second-aiy amines - was rediscovered only thirty years later. The renaissance of aminocatalysis was prompted by two independent reports by List et al. on the asymmetric intermolecular aldol addition catalysed by (S)-proline (1) and by MacMillan et al. on the asymmetric Diels-Alder cycloaddition catalj ed by a phenylalanine-derived imidazolidinone 2. These two reactions represented the archetypical examples of asymmetric carbonyl compound activation, via enamine (Figure ll.lA) and iminium-ion (Figure 11.IB), respectively. 

---