Generation methods cycloaddition

During the synthetic efforts of Heathcock and co-workers toward the complex marine alkaloid sarain-A (Scheme 3.80), he outlined an elegant intramolecular, azomethine ylide cycloaddition, as one of the key stages in the construction of the central core (76). Of the generation methods known for azomethine ylides, thermolysis of aziridines was selected in this instance. The azomethine ylide... 

Padwa and co-workers (60,106,107) have been highly active in using carbonyl ylides for the synthesis of a number of bioactive alkaloids (Scheme 4.51). In an approach to the aspidosperma alkaloids, a push-pull carbonyl ylide was used to generate a bicyclic ylide containing a tethered indole moiety. This strategy ultimately allowed for the synthesis of the dehydrovindorosin skeleton (108). Starting from a quaternary substimted piperidone (200), elaboration of the 3-carboxylic acid provided p-ketoester amide 201. Addition of the indole tethered side chain provided a very rapid and efficient method to generate the cycloaddition precursor 203. 

These newly discovered methods have found wide synthetic application. Examples include the generation and cycloaddition of stabilized N-unsubstituted azomethine ylides, nonstabilized N-substituted azomethine ylides, and even the parent azomethine ylides bearing no carbon substituents (19). However, these modem procedures often require severe reaction conditions such as high reaction temperatures, the use of polar solvents, and the use of strong bases, among others. The poor stereo- and regioselectivities that are often observed in the cycloadditions of nonstabilized azomethine ylides have discouraged their use in the stereocontrolled synthesis of complex molecules. 

Intramolecular azomethine ylide cycloaddition to the C—O double bond of an aldehyde was reported in 197369 and cycloaddition to the C—C double bond was first reported in 1975.70 Competition between 1,1- and 1,3-cycloaddition is observed in intramolecular reactions, although intermolecular reactions give only 1,3-cycloaddition. Photolysis of 2//-azirines is one generation method of nitrile ylides applicable to intramolecular cycloaddition.70 Another method involves the base-catalyzed 1,3-elimination of hydrogen halide from alkenyl imidoyl halides. Still other procedures involve thermolytic and photolytic cycloreversions of oxazolinones and dihydrooxazaphospholes. 

Blechert and coworkers have extended synthetic methods involving generation and cycloaddition reactions of ct-cyanovinylindoles. The cyanovinyl indoles can be generated from arylhydroxylamines by reaction with an aldehyde and cyanoallene. <95S592> The resulting vinylindoles were used as precursors of several kinds of alkaloid structures. 

The simplest ylide generation method among the deprotonation route (Section II,D) consists of the condensation of N-substituted a-amino esters with carbonyl compounds. This procedure must be especially useful for utilization in intramolecular cycloadditions because the substrates for the cycloadditions are simply prepared in situ by reacting the carbonyl compounds (or secondary amines) bearing a trapping chain with secondary amines (or carbonyl compounds). 

Historically, potassium /er/-butoxide was the first base used for the preparation of 1,1-dibromo-cyclopropanes from bromoform and an alkene. Since generation and cycloaddition of dibromo-carbene to alkenes proceeds rapidly, this method is still in laboratory practice. 

Kanemasa and coworkers have has also developed the effective use of MS 4A for the rate-controlled slow generation of nitrile oxide 1,3-dipoles from hydroximoyl chlorides in alcohol media. Less than 3 equiv of MS 4A was sufficient enough for the quantitative generation of nitrile oxides in a few hours. This MS 4A-mediated generation method of nitrile oxide can be effectively applied to the catalytic enantioselective nitrile oxide cycloadditions with l-acryloyl-3,5-dimethylpyrazole as dipolarophile in the presence of the nickel(II) aqua complex (10mol%) of R, 7 -DBFOX/Ph ligand [36]. As shown in Table 7.18, the highest yield of cycloadduct was 94% and the maximized enantioselectivity was up to 97% ee. 

An alternative approach to thionitrosoarenes involves the reaction of amines with SCla. This method has also been adapted to the production of selenonitrosoarenes ArN=Se by using the selenium(If) synthon PhSOaSeCl as the Se source (Scheme 10.2). It is likely that SeCla, generated in situ in THF, could also be used in this process. The Diels-Alder cycloaddition of ArN=Se species with dimethylbutadiene gives 1,2-selenazine derivatives in low yields. 

Accordingly, cyclic nitronates can be a useful synthetic equivalent of functionalized nitrile oxides, while reaction examples are quite limited. Thus, 2-isoxazoline N-oxide and 5,6-dihydro-4H-l,2-oxazine N-oxide, as five- and six-membered cyclic nitronates, were generated in-situ by dehydroiodination of 3-iodo-l-nitropropane and 4-iodo-l-nitrobutane with triethylamine and trapped with monosubstituted alkenes to give 5-substituted 3-(2-hydroxyethyl)isoxazolines and 2-phenylperhydro-l,2-oxazino[2,3-fe]isoxazole, respectively (Scheme 7.26) [72b]. Upon treatment with a catalytic amount of trifluoroacetic acid, the perhydro-l,2-oxazino[2,3-fe]isoxazole was quantitatively converted into the corresponding 2-isoxazoline. Since a method for catalyzed enantioselective nitrone cycloadditions was established and cyclic nitronates should behave like cyclic nitrones in reactivity, there would be a good chance to attain catalyzed enantioselective formation of 2-isoxazolines via nitronate cycloadditions. 

In 2000, it was proposed that the regioselectivity of the [3 + 2] cycloaddition of fullerenes could be modified under microwave irradiation. Under conventional heating, N-methylazomethine yhde and fullerene-(C7o) gave three different isomeric cycloadducts because of the low symmetry of C70 vs. Ceo. Using microwave irradiation and o-dichlorobenzene as a solvent, only two isomers were obtained, the major cycloadduct 114 being kinetically favored (Scheme 39) [75]. The same authors had previously reported the 1,3-dipolar cyclo addition of pyrazole nitrile oxides, generated in situ, to Geo under either conventional heating or microwave irradiation. The electrochemical characteristics of the cycloadduct obtained with this method made this product a candidate for photophysical apphcations [76]. 

An in depth account of intramolecular 1,3-dipoIar cycloadditions involving dipoles such as nitrUe oxides, sUyl nitronates, H-nitrones, azides, and nitrUimines is presented with particular emphasis on the stereochemistry during the cycloaddition. Various methods employed for the generation of the dipoles and their applications to stereoselective synthesis are also discussed. 

The use of cycloadditions for synthesizing medium-sized ring lactams is more or less restricted to the generation of seven-membered rings. The simplest method to generate azepinones seems to be the [6-1-1] reaction of a 1,6-dicar-boxylic acid chloride 148/152 and a phosphinimine 149, the in situ formed chloro enamine 150 underwent a Chapman rearrangement to give a cyclic imide 151/153 (Scheme 28)] [36]. 

Given their extraordinary reactivity, one might assume that o-QMs offer plentiful applications as electrophiles in synthetic chemistry. However, unlike their more stable /tora-quinone methide (p-QM) cousin, the potential of o-QMs remains largely untapped. The reason resides with the propensity of these species to participate in undesired addition of the closest available nucleophile, which can be solvent or the o-QM itself. Methods for o-QM generation have therefore required a combination of low concentrations and high temperatures to mitigate and reverse undesired pathways and enable the redistribution into thermodynamically preferred and desired products. Hence, the principal uses for o-QMs have been as electrophilic heterodienes either in intramolecular cycloaddition reactions with nucleophilic alkenes under thermodynamic control or in intermolecular reactions under thermodynamic control where a large excess of a reactive nucleophile thwarts unwanted side reactions by its sheer vast presence. 

As discussed in Section 6.2, nitro compounds are good precursors of nitrile oxides, which are important dipoles in cycloadditions. The 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of nitrile oxides with alkenes or alkynes provides a straightforward access to 2-isoxazolines or isoxazoles, respectively. A number of ring-cleaving procedures are applicable, such that various types of compounds may be obtained from the primary adducts (Scheme 8.18). There are many reports on synthetic applications of this reaction. The methods for generation of nitrile oxides and their reactions are discussed in Section 6.2. Recent synthetic applications and asymmetric synthesis using 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of nitrile oxides are summarized in this section. 

Synthetic work commenced with evaluation of an azomethine ylide dipole for the proposed intramolecular dipolar cycloaddition. A number of methods exist for the preparation of azomethine ylides, including, inter alia, transformations based on fluoride-mediated desilylation of a-silyliminium species, electrocyclic ring opening of aziridines, and tautomerization of a-amino acid ester imines [37]. In particular, the fluoride-mediated desilylation of a-silyliminium species, first reported by Vedejs in 1979 [38], is among the most widely used methods for the generation of non-stabilized azomethine ylides (Scheme 1.6). 

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