Esters, reaction with amide enolates

Asymmetric hydraxylation of lithium enolates of esters and amides.2 Hydroxylation of typical enolates of esters with ( + )- and (-)-l is effected in 75-90% yield and with 55-85% ee. The reaction with amide enolates with ( + )- and ( — )-l results in the opposite configuration to that obtained with ester enolates and with less enantioselectivity. Steric factors appear to predominate over metal chelation. 

S. K. Taylor, Reactions of Epoxides with Ester, Ketone and Amide Enolates , Tetrahedron 2000, 56, 1149-1163. 

Related Reagents. The synthesis of chiral diazenedicarboxylates as potential chiral electrophilic aminating agents has received little attention. A series of chiral bomyl, isobomyl and menthyl diazenedicarboxylates has been reported and their reaction with achiral enolates of esters and N,N-dimethyl amides afforded a-hydrazino acid derivatives with little or no selectivity. Incorporation of a chiral azodicarboxamide unit into a chiral bridging binaphthyl moiety afforded a-hydrazino acid derivatives with high stereoselectivity in reactions with achiral oxazolidinone anions. ... 

Aldol Reactions. Pseudoephedrine amide enolates have been shown to undergo highly diastereoselective aldol addition reactions, providing enantiomerically enriched p-hydroxy acids, esters, ketones, and their derivatives (Table 11). The optimized procedure for the reaction requires enolization of the pseudoephedrine amide substrate with LDA followed by transmeta-lation with 2 equiv of ZrCp2Cl2 at —78°C and addition of the aldehyde electrophile at — 105°C. It is noteworthy that the reaction did not require the addition of lithium chloride to favor product formation as is necessary in many other pseudoephedrine amide enolate alkylation reactions. The stereochemistry of the alkylation is the same as that observed with alkyl halides and the formation of the 2, i-syn aldol adduct is favored. The tendency of zirconium enolates to form syn aldol products has been previously reported. The p-hydroxy amide products obtained can be readily transformed into the corresponding acids, esters, and ketones as reported with other alkylated pseudoephedrine amides. An asymmetric aldol reaction between an (S,S)-(+)-pseudoephe-drine-based arylacetamide and paraformaldehyde has been used to prepare enantiomerically pure isoflavanones. ... 

Reactions of epoxides with ester, ketone and amide enolates 00T1149. b. Synthesis of Oxiranes. 

Many types of carbonyl compounds, including aldehydes, ketones, esters, thioesters, acids, and amides, can be converted into enolate ions by reaction with LDA. Table 22.1 lists the approximate pKa values of different types of carbonyl compounds and shows how these values compare to other acidic substances we ve seen. Note that nitriles, too, are acidic and can be converted into enolate-like anions. 

Although the methodology described so far produces <5-oxo esters via diastereoselective enolate additions to enones, the same product may be obtained via an alternate sequence, i.e., addition of ketone or aldehyde enolates to a,j3-unsaturated esters or amides. Enolates of ketones are known to react with a,/ -unsaturated esters to give the Michael adducts50, however, the study of simple diastcrcoselectivity has, so far, been limited to special cases (MIMIRC reactions, Section 1.5.2.4.4.). 

Ketones and carboxylic esters can be a hydroxylated by treatment of their enolate forms (prepared by adding the ketone or ester to LDA) with a molybdenum peroxide reagent (MoOs-pyridine-HMPA) in THF-hexane at -70°C. The enolate forms of amides and estersand the enamine derivatives of ketones can similarly be converted to their a hydroxy derivatives by reaction with molecular oxygen. The M0O5 method can also be applied to certain nitriles. Ketones have also been Qc hydroxylated by treating the corresponding silyl enol ethers with /n-chloroperoxy-... 

They have developed direct asymmetric synthesis of quaternary carbon centers via addition-elimination process. The reactions of chiral nitroenamines with zinc enolates of a-substituted-8-lactones afford a,a-disubstituted-6-lactones with a high ee through addition-elimination process, in which (5)-(+)-2-(methoxy methy l)pyrrolidine (SMP) is used as a chiral leaving group (Eq. 4.96).119 Application of this method to other substrates such as a-substituted ketones, esters, and amides has failed to yield high ee. 

Similar effects were observed in the structures of the lithium salts of ester enolates [43] studied by Seebach et al. (1985). Here too systematic differences in angles are observed compared with amide and ketone enolates, and there is a correlation between the bond angles and the difference in the two C-O bond lengths at the reaction centre for three compounds [43], consistent with incipient elimination of t-butoxide to give the ketene [44] (Ferretti et al., 1991). 

In the late 1960s, methods were developed for the synthesis of alkylated ketones, esters, and amides via the reaction of trialkyl-boranes with a-diazocarbonyl compounds (50,51), halogen-substituted enolates (52), and sulfur ylids (53) (eqs. [33]-[35]). Only one study has addressed the stereochemical aspects of these reactions in detail. Masamune (54) reported that diazoketones 56 (Ri = CH3, CH2Ph, Ph), upon reaction with tributylborane, afford almost exclusively the ( )-enolate, in qualitative agreement with an earlier report by Pasto (55). It was also found that E) - (Z)-enolate isomerization could be accomplished with a catalytic amount of lithium phenoxide (CgHg, 16 hr, 22°C) (54). 

The enolates of fluoroacetate or fluorothioacetate esters are generated either through deprotonation with a lithium amide or by an in situ reduction of ethyl bromofluoroacetate with zinc. These enolates can undergo diverse reactions with electrophiles (Figure 2.7) ... 

Isoniazide, the hydrazide of pyridine-4-carboxylic acid, is still, well over half a century after its discovery, one of the mainstays for the treatment of tuberculosis. Widespread use led to the serendipitous discovery of its antidepressant activity. This latter activity is retained when pyridine is replaced by isoxazole. The requisite ester (45-4) is obtained in a single step by condensation of the diketo ester (45-1), obtained by aldol condensation of acetone with diethyl oxalate, with hydroxylamine. One explanation of the outcome of the reaction assumes the hrst step to consist of conjugate addition-elimination of hydroxylamine to the enolized diketone to afford (45-2) an intermediate probably in equilibrium with the enol form (45-3). An ester-amide interchange of the product with hydrazine then affords the corresponding hydrazide (45-5) reductive alkylation with benzaldehyde completes the synthesis of isocarboxazid (45-6) [47]. 

Aromatic esters may be used to aroylate the dianions derived from 1,3-diketones by reaction with potassium amide (60JOC538). Not only are acetyl and benzoyl acetones suitable for reaction, but alicyclic diketones and 2-hydroxyacetophenone are also acceptable. Cycliz-ation of the triketones occurs in cold sulfuric acid, presumably via the enolic form and the hemiacetal (Scheme 132). 

The 1,4-conjugate addition of ester enolates to a, 3-enones was first reported by Kohler in 1910,138a c as an anomalous Reformatsky reaction, but chemoselectivity was dependent on the structure of the a,(3-enone and restricted to bromozinc enolates obtained from either a-bromoisobutyrate or bromomalonate esters (Scheme 66).138d,e Further evaluation, with lithio ester enolates and lithio amide enolate additions, has resulted in identification of four factors that affect the chemoselectivity and diastereoselectivity of additions to a, 3-enones.139 These factors are (a) enolate geometry, (b) acceptor geometry, (c) steric bulk of the -substituent on the acceptor enone and (d) reaction conditions. In general, under kinetic reaction conditions (-78 °C), ( )-ester enolates afford preferential 1,2-addition products while (Z)-ester enolates afford substantial amounts of 1,4-addition products however, 1,2 to 1,4 equilibration occurs at 25 C in the presence of HMPA. The stereostructure of the 1,4-adducts is dependent on the initial enolate structure for example, with ( )-enones, (Z)-ester enolates afford anti adducts, while (E)-ester enolates afford syn adducts (Scheme 54). In contrast, amide enolates show a modest preference for anti diastereomer formation. 

Perhaps the most useful type of alkene substrates for these reactions are enol ethers, enol esters and vinyl sulfides. Silyl enol ethers have excellent electron-donor properties, with an ionization potential of about 8 eV and an oxidation potential in various solvents of approximately 1.0-1.5 V vs SCE161. These compounds are easily synthesized by reaction of an enolate with a chlorosilane. (A very recent report synthesized a variety of silyl enol ethers with extremely high stereochemical yield, using the electrogenerated amidate of 2-pyrolidinone as the base.)162 An interesting point is that the use of oxidative or reductive cyclization reactions allows carbonyl functionalities to be ambivalent, either oxidizable or reducible (Scheme 65)163. 

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