Enantioselective Michael addition organocatalysis

Alternatively, the iminium-activation strategy has also been apphed to the Mukaiyama-Michael reaction, which involves the use of silyl enol ethers as nucleophiles. In this context, imidazolidinone 50a was identified as an excellent chiral catalyst for the enantioselective conjugate addition of silyloxyfuran to a,p-unsaturated aldehydes, providing a direct and efficient route to the y-butenolide architecture (Scheme 3.15). This is a clear example of the chemical complementarity between organocatalysis and transition-metal catalysis, with the latter usually furnishing the 1,2-addition product (Mukaiyama aldol) while the former proceeds via 1,4-addition when ambident electrophiles such as a,p-unsaturated aldehydes are employed. This reaction needed the incorporation of 2,4-dinitrobenzoic acid (DNBA) as a Bronsted acid co-catalyst assisting the formation of the intermediate iminium ion, and also two equivalents of water had to be included as additive for the reaction to proceed to completion, which... 

Chiral oxazaborolidine catalysts were applied in various enantioselective transformations including reduction of highly functionalized ketones/ oximes or imines/ Diels-Alder reactions/ cycloadditions/ Michael additions, and other reactions. These catalysts are surprisingly small molecules compared to the practically efficient chiral phosphoric acids, cinchona alkaloids, or (thio)ureas hence, their effectiveness in asymmetric catalysis demonstrates that huge substituents or extensive hydrogen bond networks are not absolutely essential for successful as5unmetric organocatalysis. 

Organocatalysis have emerged recently as one of the cornerstones for the enanti-oselective synthesis of C-C or C-heteroatom bonds. Owing to the easy prediction of the stereochemical outcome of the reactions, iminium activation and specific Michael reactions is one of the most studied reaction types in organocatalysis. In the literature, we can find multiple approaches to the organocatalytic Michael reaction using different catalysts or nucleophiles, most of them with exceptional levels of stereoselectivity. Moreover, these simple additions to enals or enones have inspired multiple organocatalytic tandem and cascade reactions and, in our view, open up a new pathway for the enantioselective construction of complex scaffolds in one-pot procedures. 

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