Epimerization, allenes

Significantly, silylcuprates react with carbamates with syn stereoselectivity59, similar to their reactions with organocuprates62, whereas other nucleofugal groups, such as acetate or methanesulfonate, are displaced in an anti fashion23,27,57. Thus, both enantiomeric (or epimeric) allenes can be obtained from the same propynyl alcohol precursor. 

The kinetic resolution using a chiral zirconocene-imido complex 286 took place with high enantioselectivity to result in chiral allenes 287 (up to 98% ee) (Scheme 4.74) [116]. However, a potential drawback of these methods is irreversible consumption of half of the allene even if complete recovery of the desired enantiomer is possible. Dynamic kinetic resolutions avoid this disadvantage in the enantiomer-differentiating reactions. Node et al. transformed a di-(-)-L-menthyl ester of racemic allene-l,3-dicarboxylate [(S)- and (RJ-288] to the corresponding chiral allene dicarbox-ylate (R)-288 by an epimerization-crystallization method with the assistance of a catalytic amount of Et3N (Scheme 4.75) [117]. 

Based on nucleophilic addition, racemic allenyl sulfones were partially resolved by reaction with a deficiency of optically active primary or secondary amines [243]. The reversible nucleophilic addition of tertiary amines or phosphanes to acceptor-substituted allenes can lead to the inversion of the configuration of chiral allenes. For example, an optically active diester 177 with achiral groups R can undergo a racemization (Scheme 7.29). A 4 5 mixture of (M)- and (P)-177 with R = (-)-l-menthyl, obtained through synthesis of the allene from dimenthyl 1,3-acetonedicar-boxylate (cf. Scheme 7.18) [159], furnishes (M)-177 in high diastereomeric purity in 90% yield after repeated crystallization from pentane in the presence of catalytic amounts of triethylamine [158], Another example of a highly elegant epimerization of an optically active allene based on reversible nucleophilic addition was published by Marshall and Liao, who were successful in the transformation 179 — 180 [35], Recently, Lu et al. published a very informative review on the reactions of electron-deficient allenes under phosphane catalysis [244]. 

Further mechanistic work with optically active and labeled compounds confirmed that the rate-determining step in such rearrangement was the silver coordination to the alkyne moiety and revealed that the silver-catalyzed allene epimerization was 2-40 times faster than the propargyl ester rearrangement.53... 

As mentioned in Section 4.1.2 there are also scattered examples of [2 + 2]-photo-cycloaddition reactions ofpyridones. 4-Methoxypyridone (159) was reported to form a 1 1-photoadduct 160 with allene (Scheme 6.57), with exclusive HTproduct formation being observed. Analogously, the reaction with diketene was reported in the same study to be regioselective, but resulted in a mixture of two epimeric products [152],... 

The reaction may also be intramolecular. The allenic ether 6.28 was subjected to Wacker conditions, employing benzoquinone as the oxidant, on a multigramme scale (Scheme 6.13)." The palladium could catalyse both the hydrolysis of the allenic ether to enone 6.29 and the 6-endo cyclization to the tetrahydropyran 6.30. In contrast, use of Brpnsted acids to catalyse the cyclization of the isolated enone resulted in partial epimerization. ... 

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