Enolates anion structure

D. Enolate Anions Structure and Aggregation State of Enolate Anions... 

The alkylation reactions of enolate anions of both ketones and esters have been extensively utilized in synthesis. Both very stable enolates, such as those derived from (i-ketoesters, / -diketones, and malonate esters, as well as less stable enolates of monofunctional ketones, esters, nitriles, etc., are reactive. Many aspects of the relationships between reactivity, stereochemistry, and mechanism have been clarified. A starting point for the discussion of these reactions is the structure of the enolates. Because of the delocalized nature of enolates, an electrophile can attack either at oxygen or at carbon. 

Tire tautomerism and ionization of xanthosine (21), a 9-substituted xanthine, have been studied by IR spectroscopy in aqueous solution [83MI(2)231].Tlie diketo structure 21 was shown to exist below pH 5, and the 2-enolate anion 22 at neutral and slightly basic pH. 

Q Base removes an acidic hydrogen from the a position of the carbonyl compound, yielding an enolate anion that has two resonance structures. 

The proportion of the /rans-O-alkylated product [101] increases in the order no ligand < 18-crown-6 < [2.2.2]-cryptand. This difference was attributed to the fact that the enolate anion in a crown-ether complex is still capable of interacting with the cation, which stabilizes conformation [96]. For the cryptate, however, cation-anion interactions are less likely and electrostatic repulsion will force the anion to adopt conformation [99], which is the same as that of the free anion in DMSO. This explanation was substantiated by the fact that the anion was found to have structure [96] in the solid state of the potassium acetoacetate complex of 18-crown-6 (Cambillau et al., 1978). Using 23Na NMR, Cornelis et al. (1978) have recently concluded that the active nucleophilic species is the ion pair formed between 18-crown-6 and sodium ethyl acetoacetate, in which Na+ is co-ordinated to both the anion and the ligand. 

The CPop intermediate is the j5-cuprio ketone intermediate widely debated in mechanistic discussions of conjugate addition (cf. Scheme 10.3). On the basis of recent theoretical analysis, two limiting structures for CPop may now be considered these are shown in the bottom box in Scheme 10.5. The reason for the exceptional stability of CPop as a trialkylcopper(III) species can be readily understood in terms of the j5-cuprio(III) enolate structure, with the internal enolate anion acting as a strong stabilizing ligand for the Cu state [82]. 

The more complex structures are inappropriate for consideration here, but the two compounds orsellinic acid and phloracetophenone exemplify nicely the enolate anion mechanisms we have been considering, as well as the concept of keto-enol tautomerism. 

Essentially the same sort of enolate anion aldol and Claisen reactions occur in the production of the more complex structures mycophenolic acid, griseofulvin, and tetracycline. However, the final structure is only obtained after a series of further modifications. 

This is an equilibrium reaction, and it raises a couple of points. First, there are two a-positions in the ketone, so what about the COCH3-derived enolate anion The answer is that it is formed, but since the CH3 group is not chiral, proton removal and reprotonation have no consequence. Racemization only occurs where we have a chiral a-carbon carrying a hydrogen substituent. Second, the enolate anion resonance structure with charge on carbon is not planar, but roughly tetrahedral. If we reprotonate this, it must occur from just one side. Yes, but both enantiomeric forms of the carbanion will be produced, so we shall still get the racemic mixture. 

The mechanistic steps can be deduced by inspection of structures and conditions. Enolate anion formation from diethyl malonate under basic conditions is indicated, and that this must attack the epoxide in an Sn2 reaction is implicated by the addition of the malonate moiety and disappearance of the epoxide. The subsequent ring formation follows logically from the addition anion, and is analogous to base hydrolysis of an ester. Ester hydrolysis followed by decarboxylation of the P-keto acid is then implicated by the acidic conditions and structural relationships. 

The next step is not immediately obvious. The generation of an ethyl ester from a lactone can be accommodated by transesterification (we might alternatively consider esterification of the free hydroxyacid). The incorporation of chlorine where we effectively had the alcohol part of the lactone leads us to nucleophilic substitution. That it can be SnI is a consequence of the tertiary site. Cyclopropane ring formation from an Sn2 reaction in which an enolate anion displaces a halide should be deducible from the structural relationships and basic conditions. 

Another synthetic approach towards the synthesis of compound 80 involves prior deprotonation of the carboxylic amide with f-BuLi, which is then followed by reaction with dimethylzinc (Scheme 10). All three compounds have similar structural features, i.e. they are dimers as a result of two O-bridging enolate anions between two lithium atoms. The... 

It is important to distinguish tautomerism from resonance, a term used to indicate that the properties of a given molecule cannot be represented by a single valence structure but can be represented as a hybrid of two or more structures in which all the nuclei remain in the same places. Only bonding electrons move to convert one resonance form into another. Examples are the enolate anion, which can be thought of as a hybrid of structures A and B, and the amide linkage, which can be represented by a similar pair of resonance forms. 

The structure can be thought of as a resonance-stabilized enolate anion with a proton bound between the two oxygen atoms and equidistant from them.156157... 

The enzyme is a hexamer, actually a dimer of trimers made up of 291-residue polypeptide chains.28 Aceto-acetyl-CoA is a competitive inhibitor which binds into the active site and locates it. From the X-ray structure of the enzyme-inhibitor complex it can be deduced that the carboxylate group of E144 abstracts a proton from a water molecule to provide the hydroxyl ion that binds to the P position (Eq. 13-6, step a) and that the E164 carboxyl group donates a proton to the intermediate enolate anion in step b.28 The hydroxyl group... 

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