Enol ether stilbene

Fig. 13.2.1. From natural antifungals to the enol ether stilbene as a new synthetic lead structure.

For routine evaluation of structure-activity relationships at the target level we used at BASF an automatized test with yeast submitochondrial preparations. To ensure that individual results were comparable, all test series included a reference standard, the enol ether stilbene, to which the I50 value obtained for a test substance was referred [Eq. (1)] ... 

By definition, F = 1 for the enol ether stilbene, and hence the smaller F, the higher the activity. This test has proven to be an extremely useful tool, inter alia in the identification of new pharmacophore variants. To give an impression of resulting structure-activity relationships, Fig. 13.2.5 shows a small selection of such pharmacophore variants together with their corresponding F values. The presented compounds all contain the same side-chain, namely that of kresoxim-methyl. For a more detailed discussion, see Refs. [7, 9]. 

Silyl enol ethers, 23, 77, 99-117,128 Silyl enolates, 77 Silyl peroxides, 57 Silyl triflate, 94 Silyl vinyl lithium, 11 (E)-l -Silylalk-1 -enes, 8 Silylalumimum, 8 Silylation, 94 reductive, 26 a-C-Silylation, 113 O-Silylation.99,100 / -SilyIketone, 54 non-cydic, 55 Silylmagnesium, 8 Silyloxydienes, 112 Sodium hexamethyldisilazide, 89 Sodium thiosulphate pentahydrate, 59 Stannylation, see Hydrostannylation Stannylethene, 11 (Z)-Stilbene, 70 (E)-Stilbene oxide, 70 /3-Styryltrimethylsilane, 141 Swern oxidation. 84,88... 

Reactions of 1 with epoxides involve some cycloaddition products, and thus will be treated here. Such reactions are quite complicated and have been studied in some depth.84,92 With cyclohexene oxide, 1 yields the disilaoxirane 48, cyclohexene, and the silyl enol ether 56 (Eq. 29). With ( )- and (Z)-stilbene oxides (Eq. 30) the products include 48, ( > and (Z)-stilbenes, the E- and Z-isomers of silyl enol ether 57, and only one (trans) stereoisomer of the five-membered ring compound 58. The products have been rationalized in terms of the mechanism detailed in Scheme 14, involving a ring-opened zwitterionic intermediate, allowing for carbon-carbon bond rotation and the observed stereochemistry. 

Cavallo et al. from (+)-dihydrocarvone and evaluated in the asymmetric epoxida-tion of several silyl enol ethers [32]. Enantiomeric excess up to 74% was achieved in the epoxidation of the TBDMS trans-enol ether of desoxybenzoin with the fluoro ketone 19d (30 mol% of the ketone catalysts). In earlier work Solladie-Cavallo et al. had shown that the fluoro ketones 19a and 19e can be used to epoxidize trans-stilbene with up to 90% ee (30 mol% ketone catalyst) [33], Asymmetric epoxidation of trans-methyl 4-para-methoxycinnamate using ketone 19e as catalyst is discussed in Section 10.2. 

The ability of non-C2 symmetric ketones to promote a highly enantioselective dioxirane-mediated epoxidation was first effectively demonstrated by Shi in 1996 [114]. The fructose-derived ketone 44 was discovered to be particularly effective for the epoxidation of frans-olefins (Scheme 17 ). frans-Stilbene, for instance, was epoxidized in 95% ee using stoichiometric amounts of ketone 44, and even more impressive was the epoxidation of dialkyl-substituted substrates. This method was rendered catalytic (30 mol %) upon the discovery of a dramatic pH effect, whereby higher pH led to improved substrate conversion [115]. Higher pH was proposed to suppress decomposition pathways for ketone 44 while simultaneously increasing the nucleophilicity of Oxone. Shi s ketone system has recently been applied to the AE of enol esters and silyl enol ethers to provide access to enantio-enriched enol ester epoxides and a-hydroxy ketones [116]. Another recent improvement of Shi s fructose-derived epoxidation reaction is the development of inexpensive synthetic routes to access both enantiomers of this very promising ketone catalyst [117]. 

Alkyl and acylsilanes Tetraalkylsilanes are inert to the carbonyl coupling reaction conditions, as shown by the syntheses of 43 and 44 [61, 62]. Despite their dose similarity to sterically hindered ketones, McMurry reactions of acylsilanes are limited to the preparation of the 1,2-disilylated stilbenes 45 (R = H, Br or OMe) silyl enol ethers are also obtained as by-products, resulting from silatropic migration [63], No such coupling of aliphatic acylsilanes has yet been reported. 

In 2000, Solladie-Cavallo synthesized fluorinated ketones 408 from (+)-dihydrocarvone and investigated them in the asymmetric epoxidation of different fran -stilbenes and silyl enol ethers (Fig. 7.20) [285-287]. Later she reported rigid fran -decalones 409 which gave up to 70% ee (409a) and 20% ee (409b) in the epoxidation of ran -P-methylstyrene (Fig. 7.20) [288]. 

---