Enolate compounds natural products synthesis

The asymmetric arylation of ketone enolates represents an attractive method for the preparation of optically active carbonyl compounds with a stereogenic quaternary center at the a-position to the carbonyl group. Such types of compounds are important intermediates for natural product synthesis. Replacement of BINAP by 109 provides... 

In a second part, the reactivity of a-phenylselanyl enolates, derived from ketones, esters, lactones and a,/i-unsatm ated carbonyl compounds, is discussed. Alkylation, aldolisation and Michael reactions are considered as the use of selenium-stabilized carbanions in the natural product synthesis. Others a-fimctionalyzed species are also presented. 

Alkoxycyclopropanes are commonly prepared from alkyl enol ethers by one of the Simmons-Smith modifications (see Chapter 7). According to Wenkert and coworkers they are cleaved by strong acids to the a-methylated carbonyl compound, thus establishing an overall a-methylation of a ketone or an aldehyde (equation 64). This method has often been used for natural product synthesis (e.g. valerane " ). 

Selenenylations of ketones, esters, lactones and lactams are usually effected by the reaction of the corresponding lithium enolates with PhSeCl, PhSeBr and PhSeSePh (with the exception of ketones) at low temperature. Aldehydes have not been selenenylated in this manner. Table 4 illustrates some typical products that have been made in this way. Selenenylation has been especially useful in natural product synthesis for the formation of a-methylenelactones from the parent a-methyl compounds (Scheme 15 and Table 4), and has significant advantages over the more traditional methods for ef-... 

An elegant access to natural product synthesis was realized by Wright and co-workers, who obtained a cis-junction through the cyclization reaction of 91. The silyl enol ether 91 is electrochemically oxidized and subsequently cyclizes to yield compound 92. In three further steps, the cyathin core 93 can be prepared. 

Schreiber and his coworkers have published extensively over the past decade on the use of this photocycloaddition for the synthesis of complex molecules730 81. Schreiber was the first to recognize that the bicyclic adducts formed in these reactions could be unmasked under acidic conditions to afford threo aldol products of 1,4-dicarbonyl compounds (175 to 176) (Scheme 40). The c -bicyclic system also offers excellent stereocontrol in the addition of various electrophilic reagents (E—X) to the enol ether of these photoadducts on its convex face (175 to 177). This strategy has been exploited in the synthesis of a variety of architecturally novel natural products. 

Mannich and related readions provide one of the most fundamental and useful methods for the synthesis of p-amino carbonyl compounds, which constitute various pharmaceuticals, natural products, and versatile synthetic intermediates.1271 Conventional protocols for three-component Mannich-type readions of aldehydes, amines, and ketones in organic solvents indude some severe side reactions and have some substrate limitations, espedally for enolizable aliphatic aldehydes. The dired synthesis of P-amino ketones from aldehydes, amines, and silyl enolates under mild conditions is desirable from a synthetic point of view. Our working hypothesis was that aldehydes could read with amines in a hydro-phobic reaction fidd created in water in the presence of a catalytic amount of a metal triflate and a surfactant to produce imines, which could then read with hydrophobic silyl enolates. 

In addition to reactions characteristic of carbonyl compounds, Fischer-type carbene complexes undergo a series of transformations which are unique to this class of compounds. These include olefin metathesis [206,265-267] (for the use as metathesis catalysts, see Section 3.2.5.3), alkyne insertion, benzannulation and other types of cyclization reaction. Generally, in most of these reactions electron-rich substrates (e.g. ynamines, enol ethers) react more readily than electron-poor compounds. Because many preparations with this type of complex take place under mild conditions, Fischer-type carbene complexes are being increasingly used for the synthesis [268-272] and modification [103,140,148,273] of sensitive natural products. 

Aiming at the pyranose form of sugars, normal type hetero-Diels-Alder reactions were extensively used for the synthesis of functionally substituted dihydropyran and tetrahydropyran systems (5-10) (see routes A - D in the general Scheme 1) which are also important targets in the "Chiron approach" to natural product syntheses (2.) Hetero-Diels-Alder reactions with inverse electron demand such as a, p-unsaturated carbonyl compounds (l-oxa-1,3-dienes) as heterodienes and enol ethers as hetero-dienophiles, are an attractive route for the synthesis of 3,4-dihydro-2H-pyrans (11). 

The alkylation of cyclopentanoid enolate groups, which are part of polycyclic systems, is a common step in natural product syntheses, particularly in the synthesis of terpenoids and steroids. A high degree of stereoselectivity is usually encountered in such reactions, for example, in the preparation of the bicyclic compounds 17-2054 59. Steric, rather than electronic, control elements determine the diastereoselectivity. 

The utility of the creation of a y-lactone enolate through 1,4-addition of a carbanion and its interception by an electrophile has also been demonstrated in other classes of natural products, e.g., in the enantioselective synthesis of 10-oxa-l 1-methyl PGE2 analogues22. This synthesis starts with 1,4-addition of the sulfone-stabilized anion from 27 to ( + )-(S )-4-methyl-2-buteno-lide which has been prepared in three steps from (—)-(S)-l,2-epoxypropane. The intermediate enolate 28 is reacted with the acetylenic iodide to give the trisubstituted diastereomeric mixture of lactones 29, which is eventually converted into the pure compound 30, both reactions occurring with high diastereoselectivity. 

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