Ethers, allyl inside alkoxy effect

The oxygen atom has also been used to generate other functionalities, such as the aldehyde moiety in Kibayashi s syntheses of (—)-coniine (197) and its enantiomer (Scheme 1.43) (253). Here, reaction of tetrahydropyridine N-oxide 93 with a silylated chiral allyl ether dipolarophile 198 delivered the adduct 199 with the desired bridgehead stereochemistry via the inside alkoxy effect . Desilylation and hydrogenolytic N—O bond rupture with palladium(II) chloride provided the diol 200... 

The inside alkoxy effect is useful for predicting the stereoselectivity of nitrile oxide cycloaddition reactions with chiral lylic ethers. The hypothesis states that allylic ethers adopt the inside position and alkyl substituents prefer the sterically less-crowded anti conformation in transition states for these electrophilic cycloadditions . The terms inside and outside are defined in (17) for a hypothetical nitrile oxide cycloaddition transition state. Both ab initio (Gaussian 80 with 3-2IG basis set) and molecular mechanics calculations agree, each predicting the lowest-energy transition state to be the one described, i.e. (18 H outside) just above it lies one where the alkyl group is anti, OR outside and H inside (19 ). As illustrated, the former leads to a product wherein OR and the nitrile oxide oxygen are anti, the latter to one with them syn (Scheme 19). 

Houk KN, Moses SR, Wu Y-D, Rondan NG, Jager V, Schohe R, Fronczek FR (1984) Stereoselective nitrile oxide cycloadditions to chiral allyl ethers and alcohols. The inside alkoxy effect. J Am Chem Soc 106 3880-3882... 

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