Enantioselectivity producing reaction system

Alkynylation of Ketones. By combining catalytic amounts of copper(II) trifiate and camphorsulfonamides an effective chiral catalyst system is produced, which is effective in the production of tertiary propargyUc alcohols, with good to excellent enantioselectivities. These reactions represent a highly enan-tioselective catalytic addition of afkynyl zinc reagents to simple ketones (eq 43). 

Acid zeolites have also been tested for the racemisation of alcohols under biphasic conditions.Their scope was found, however, to be limited to benzylic alcohols, since electron-rich benzylic alcohols were not suitable substrates because of the formation of dimers. Under optimised conditions, based on the use of H-Beta zeolite, CALB lipase, and an excess of vinyl octanoate at 60 °C, enantiopure (R)-l-phenylethyl octanoate (>99% ee) was obtained in 90% yield from 1-phenylethanol. In addition, Lozano et al. have recently performed the DKR of this alcohol in the presence of acidic zeolite catalysts (CBV400) in an ionic liquid-supercritical carbon dioxide system with a continuous reaction system. Therefore, when Novozym 435 was employed at 50 °C and 100 bars in the presence of vinylpropanoate as the acyl donor, the expected (R)-phenylethylpropionate was produced in excellent yield of 98% with enantioselectivity of 97% ee and without any activity loss during 14 days of operation. 

An interesting bifunctional system with a combination of In(OTf)3 and benzoyl-quinine 65 was developed in p-lactam formation reaction from ketenes and an imino ester by Lectka [Eq. (13.40)]. High diastrereo- and enantioselectivity as well as high chemical yield were produced with the bifunctional catalysis. In the absence of the Lewis acid, polymerization of the acid chloride and imino ester occurred, and product yield was moderate. It was proposed that quinine activates ketenes (generated from acyl chloride in the presence of proton sponge) as a nucleophile to generate an enolate, while indium activates the imino ester, which favors the desired addition reaction (66) ... 

Once this process is explored with the model system to assess the level of enantioselectivity, we will then prepare alkyl zinc reagent 48 from 44 using standard methods - - and cross couple 48 to aryl bromide 18 using the appropriate chiral catalysts (Scheme 7). Although the acetonide stereocenter in 48 is somewhat remote from the coupling site, the stereocenter may serve to enhance the stereoselectivity of the cross-coupling process because the two possible products are diastereomers, not simply enantiomers. This reaction will produce 49 from (S)-48 and 30 from (R)-48 that can then be converted to epoxides 31 and 32 using standard methods. Epoxide 31 leads to heliannuol D 4 after base-promoted epoxide cyclization and deprotonation. Similarly, epoxide 32 leads to heliannuol A 1 after acid-promoted cyclization. 

The ability to produce 1,3-dipoles, through the rhodium-catalyzed decomposition of diazo carbonyl compounds, provides unique opportunities for the accomplishment of a variety of cycloaddition reactions, in both an intra- and intermolecular sense. These transformations are often highly regio- and diastereoselective, making them extremely powerful tools for synthetic chemistry. This is exemplified in the number of applications of this chemistry to the construction of heterocyclic and natural-product ring systems. Future developments are likely to focus on the enantioselective and combinatorial variants of these reactions. 

One of the first fluorescence-based ee assays uses umbelliferone (14) as the built-in fluorophore and works for several different types of enzymatic reactions 70,86). In an initial investigation, the system was used to monitor the hydrolytic kinetic resolution of chiral acetates (e.g., rac-11) (Fig. 8). It is based on a sequence of two coupled enzymatic steps that converts a pair of enantiomeric alcohols formed by the asymmetric hydrolysis under study (e.g., R - and (5)-12) into a fluorescent product (e.g., 14). In the first step, (R)- and (5)-ll are subjected separately to hydrolysis in reactions catalyzed by a mutant enzyme (lipase or esterase). The goal of the assay is to measure the enantioselectivity of this kinetic resolution. The relative amount of R)- and ( S)-12 produced after a given reaction time is a measure of the enantioselectivity and can be ascertained rapidly, but not directly. 

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