Enolates stereoselective alkylation

An asymmetric synthesis of estrone begins with an asymmetric Michael addition of lithium enolate (178) to the scalemic sulfoxide (179). Direct treatment of the cmde Michael adduct with y /i7-chloroperbenzoic acid to oxidize the sulfoxide to a sulfone, followed by reductive removal of the bromine affords (180, X = a and PH R = H) in over 90% yield. Similarly to the conversion of (175) to (176), base-catalyzed epimerization of (180) produces an 85% isolated yield of (181, X = /5H R = H). C8 and C14 of (181) have the same relative and absolute stereochemistry as that of the naturally occurring steroids. Methylation of (181) provides (182). A (CH2)2CuLi-induced reductive cleavage of sulfone (182) followed by stereoselective alkylation of the resultant enolate with an allyl bromide yields (183). Ozonolysis of (183) produces (184) (wherein the aldehydric oxygen is by isopropyUdene) in 68% yield. Compound (184) is the optically active form of Ziegler s intermediate (176), and is converted to (+)-estrone in 6.3% overall yield and >95% enantiomeric excess (200). 

The synthesis in Scheme 13.49 features use of an enantioselective allylic boronate reagent derived from diisopropyl tartrate to establish the C(4) and C(5) stereochemistry. The ring is closed by an olefin metathesis reaction. The C(2) methyl group was introduced by alkylation of the lactone enolate. The alkylation is not stereoselective, but base-catalyzed epimerization favors the desired stereoisomer by 4 1. 

A new chiral auxiliary based on a camphor-derived 8-lactol has been developed for the stereoselective alkylation of glycine enolate in order to give enantiomerically pure a-amino acid derivatives. As a key step for the synthesis of this useful auxiliary has served the rc-selective hydroformylation of a homoallylic alcohol employing the rhodium(I)/XANTPHOS catalyst (Scheme 11) [56]. 

Asymmetric aromatic VNS of hydrogen has been reported the enolates of chiral cyclohexyl-phenylsulfanylacetates react readily with 3-chloronitrobenzene, followed by subsequent stereoselective alkylation (Eq. 9.38).65... 

The bulky N-anthracenylmethyl group clearly plays a key role in the efficient stereoselective alkylation. The steric screening would be provided by the N-anthracenylmethyl group and the tight ion pair 28 from the ammonium cation (N+) and the enolate (0 ) would be stereoselectively alkylated as shown in Figure 3.1241 Furthermore, removal of the quinoline ring proved to be not useful to attain the good enantioselectivity.1261... 

Since ketone R)-16 was prepared in a non-selective way when an achiral imino enolate was alkylated, it was considered whether alkylation of chiral enolates, such as that of oxazoline 18, with benzyl bromide 14, would provide stereoselective access to the corresponding alkylation product 19 with R-configuration at C(8) (Scheme 4). Indeed, alkylation of 18 with 14 gave the biaryl 19 and its diastereoisomer almost quantitatively, in a 14 1 ratio. However, reductive hydrolysis using the sequence 1. MeOTf, 2. NaBH4, and 3. H30", afforded hydroxy aldehyde 20 in 25% yield at best. Furthermore, partial epimerization at C(8) occurred (dr 7.7 1). An alternative route, using chiral hydrazones, was even less successful. 

Since the formation of optically active, dioxolanone-based di-enolates was not successful, a consecutive alkylation strategy was developed for a short synthesis of (-)-wikstromol (ent-3) from (-)-malic acid (99) (Scheme 25). The first alkylation reaction was analogous to that reported for the enantioselective total synthesis of (-)-meridinol (97). In order to avoid a reduction/re-oxidation sequence and an almost unselective second alkylation, two disadvantages of the synthesis of meridinol (97) [55], we planned to use a different strategy for the second alkylation. Therefore, we have focused our strategy on two stereoselective alkylation reactions, one of dialkyl malates and one of a dioxolanone prepared thereof. Both alkylation reactions were previously described by Seebach and coworker [56, 63, 64]. The... 

Rotation is hindered in the enolate. Thus, if the a-substituent R1 4= R2, the enolate can exist in two forms, the syn- and anti-forms (enolates 2 and 3, respectively, if R2 has higher priority than R1). Attack of an electrophile on either face of the enolates, 2 or 3, leads to a mixture of the alkylated amides, 4 and 5. If R1 and R2 and the A-substituents R3 and R4 are all achiral, the two alkylated amides will be mirror images and thus a racemate results. If, however, any of the R substituents are chiral, enolate 2 will give a certain ratio of alkylated amide 4/5, whereas enolate 3 will give a different, usually inverted, ratio. Thus, for the successful design of stereoselective alkylation reactions of chiral amide enolates it is of prime importance to control the formation of the enolate so that one of the possible syn- or anti-isomers is produced in large excess over the other,... 

Treatment of the potentially electrophilic Z-xfi-unsaturated iron-acyl complexes, such as 1, with alkyllithium species or lithium amides generates extended enolate species such as 2 products arising from 1,2- or 1,4-addition to the enone functionality are rarely observed. Subsequent reaction of 2 with electrophiles results in regiocontrolled stereoselective alkylation at the a-position to provide j8,y-unsaturated products 3. The origin of this selective y-deproto-nation is suggested to be precoordination of the base to the acyl carbonyl oxygen (see structures A), followed by proton abstraction while the enone moiety exists in the s-cis conformation23536. 

Iron-acyl enolates, such as 2, prepared by x-deprotonation of the corresponding acyl complexes with lithium amides or alkyllithiums, are nearly always generated as fs-enolates which suffer stereoselective alkylation while existing as the crmt-conformer which places the carbon monoxide oxygen anti to the enolate oxygen (see Section 1.1.1.3.4.1.). These enolates react readily with strong electrophiles, such as primary iodoalkanes, primary alkyl sulfonates, 3-bromopropenes, (bromomethyl)benzenes and 3-bromopropynes, a-halo ethers and a-halo carbonyl compounds (Houben-Weyl, Volume 13/9 a, p 413) (see Table 6 for examples). 

With multigram quantities of compounds (181) and (182) in hand, attention was turned to the stereoselective alkylation of their derived enolates. The lactones (181) were smoothly transformed to their corresponding dianions which subsequently suffered alkylation favoring the expected trans product (183a)185>. 

For reviews of stereoselective alkylation of enolates, see Ndgrtidi Stereoselective Synthesis, VCH New York, 1986, pp. 236-245 Evans, in Morrison Asymmetric Synthesis, voi. 3 Academic Press New York, 1984, pp. 1-110. Hughes Dolling Ryan Schoenewaldt Grabowski 7. Org. Chem. 1987, 52, 4745. 

Reviews on stoichiometric asymmetric syntheses M. M. Midland, Reductions with Chiral Boron Reagents, in J. D. Morrison, ed., Asymmetric Synthesis, Vol. 2, Chap. 2, Academic Press, New York, 1983 E. R. Grandbois, S. I. Howard, and J. D. Morrison, Reductions with Chiral Modifications of Lithium Aluminum Hydride, in J. D. Morrison, ed.. Asymmetric Synthesis, Vol. 2, Chap. 3, Academic Press, New York, 1983 Y. Inouye, J. Oda, and N. Baba, Reductions with Chiral Dihydropyridine Reagents, in J. D. Morrison, ed., Asymmetric Synthesis, Vol. 2, Chap. 4, Academic Press, New York, 1983 T. Oishi and T. Nakata, Acc. Chem. Res., 17, 338 (1984) G. Solladie, Addition of Chiral Nucleophiles to Aldehydes and Ketones, in J. D. Morrison, ed., Asymmetric Synthesis, Vol. 2, Chap. 6, Academic Press, New York, 1983 D. A. Evans, Stereoselective Alkylation Reactions of Chiral Metal Enolates, in J. D. Morrison, ed., Asymmetric Synthesis, Vol. 3, Chap. 1, Academic Press, New York, 1984. C. H. Heathcock, The Aldol Addition Reaction, in J. D. Morrison, ed., Asymmetric Synthesis, Vol. 3, Chap. 2, Academic Press, New York, 1984 K. A. Lutomski and A. I. Meyers, Asymmetric Synthesis via Chiral Oxazolines, in J. D. Morrison, ed., Asymmetric Synthesis, Vol. 3, Chap. 

D. A. Evans in Asymmetric Synthesis, Ed. J. D. Morrison, Academic Press, New York (1984), Vol 3, Chpt 1 (stereoselective alkylation reactions of chiral metal enolates)... 

Figure 10.6 Stereoselective alkylation of an enolate in the synthesis of captopril. The heavier straight lines are bonds in the plane of the paper while the thin straight lines, are bonds behind the plane of the paper. The shape of the substrate means that an unhindered approach of the tertiary butylthiomethyl bromide (tBuSCH2Br) is only possible from one side of the iron-complex substrate. Consequently, reaction occurs mainly from this side of the complex, which results mainly in a product with an S configuration...

D. A. Evans, Stereoselective Alkylation Reactions of Chiral Metal Enolates, in Asymmetric Syn-... 

A number of methods have been developed for accomplishing aldol addition reactions in a stereoselective manner. The preformed lithium enolates of alkyl esters normally react with aldehydes to give mixtures of the two diastereomeric g-hydroxy esters (eq 1). However, the enolates derived from... 

The backbone modification of dedicated peptides through the regio- and stereoselective alkylation of their polylithiated enolates was essentially addressed by Seebach s group200,481 483. Critical to the success of this procedure was the ability to solubilize the peptides and their polylithio derivatives in THF by the addition of lithium salts. 

The potassium enolate generated from 23 is regarded as an enantiomeric atropisomer. Recently non-biaryl atropisomers have been receiving more attention in asymmetric synthesis.19 Most of them employ atropisomers that are configurationally stable at room temperature, while attention in this chapter is focused on asymmetric reactions that proceed via chiral nonracemic enolate intermediates that can exist only in a limited time. An application of configurationally stable atropisomeric amide to a chiral auxiliary for stereoselective alkylation has been reported by Simpkins and co-workers (Scheme 3.10).20... 

Stereoselective a-alkylation of ketones. This reaction can be effected by reaction of silyl enol ethers with benzyl acetates complexed with Cr(CO), in the presence of ZnCh (I equiv.). This methodology is particularly useful because only the adduct anti to the metal is obtained. Use of an optically active chromium complex such as 1 results in 100% stereoselective alkylation. 

Recent studies have suggested that coordination with a lithium cation may be responsible for the stereochemical outcome in Meyers-type enolate alkylations . In fact, the hypothesis that the diastereofacial selectivity observed in these reactions might result from specific interactions with a solvated lithium cation was already proposed in 1990 . Nevertheless, the potential influence exerted by solvation and lithium cation coordination was not supported by a series of experimental results reported by Romo and Meyers , who stated that it would appear that neither the aggregation state of the enolate nor the coordination sphere about lithium plays a major role in the observed selectivity. This contention is further supported by recent theoretical studies of Ando , who carried out a detailed analysis of the potential influence of solvated lithium cation on the stereoselective alkylation of enolates of y-butyrolactones. The results showed conclusively that complexation with lithium cation had a negligible effect on the relative stability of the transition states leading to exo and endo addition. The stereochemical outcome in the alkylation of y -butyrolactones is determined by the different torsional strain in the endo and exo TSs. 

Besides stereoselective alkylations of glycine-derived enolates, enantioselective construction of chiral quaternary carbon centers from a-amino acids is one of the most challenging topics in current organic synthesis , since nonproteinogenic a,a-disubstituted amino acids often show a remarkable influence on the conformation of peptides. Moreover, they can act as enzyme inhibitors or as building blocks for the synthesis of a wide range of natural products . 

Stereoselective Alkylation. Chiral tricyclic lactams can be prepared from (l/ ,2/ ,35,5/ )-ATBH and y-keto acids by heating in toluene with a catalytic amount of p-toluenesulfonic acid (eq 7). Enolization of the resulting lactams with sec-butyllithium, followed by trapping with methyl iodide, furnishes the methylated products in high diastereoselectivity. Subsequent enolization and alkylation with benzyl bromide affords a single diastereomer in 82% yield. Further acidic hydrolysis in butanol provides the desired ester with a quaternary asymmetric center (eq 7). ... 

Stereoselective Alkylation of Prochiral Enolates. A limited amount of work has demonstrated the potential use of chiral amines in inducing stereoselectivity in the alkyla-tion/carboxylation of prochiral enolates. The selectivity of these reactions, like those described above, is highly dependent on solvent and temperature conditions. The use of ether at — 196°C provides optimal results in a particular system (eq 10). ... 

Trichlorotitanium enolates are directly prepared from a ketone, TiCU, and a tertiary amine [122,123] and undergo aldol reactions with aldehydes [124-129], ketones [129], and imines [130,131], Intramolecular condensation with esters is also known [132-137], Although these reactions, based on a titanium enolate [16], which often results in high diastereoselectivity in aldol and related reactions [122], will not be discussed in detail in this article, the success of the alkylation of this titanium enolate with SNl-active electrophiles should be discussed owing to the high Lewis acidity of the metal center [123], Equation (37) shows stereoselective alkylation with an orthoacetate, which is usually inert to alkali metal enolates [138], Aminoalkylation of trichlorotitanium enolates with (a-chloroalkyl)amine has been performed analogously [139,140],... 

The alkylation of enolates constitutes a very powerful method for the formation of C-C bonds. Several methods have been developed in order to control the stereoselectivity of this process. First applications of carbohydrate auxiliaries in stereoselective alkylations of ester enolates were described by Heathcock et al. [152] in 1981. 

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