Hemiaminal

Barbier conditions have been used to carry out a silicon-induced addition of perfluoroalkyl iodides to DMF to give stable hemiaminal intermediates, which give the perfluonnated aldehydes upon heating with sulfuric acid [47 (equation 38)... 

Forty years after the initial proposal, Sweet and Fissekis proposed a more detailed pathway involving a carbenium ion species. According to these authors the first step involved an aldol condensation between ethyl acetoacetate (6) and benzaldehyde (5) to deliver the aldol adduct 11. Subsequent dehydration of 11 furnished the key carbenium ion 12 which was in equilibrium with enone 13. Nucleophilic attack of 12 by urea then delivered ureide 14. Intramolecular cyclization produced a hemiaminal which underwent dehydration to afford dihydropyrimidinone 15. These authors demonstrated that the carbenium species was viable through synthesis. After enone 13 was synthesized, it was allowed to react with N-methyl urea to deliver the mono-N-methylated derivative of DHPM 15. 

The mechanism was then reexamined 25 years later in 1997 by Kappe. Kappe used H and C spectroscopy to support the argument that the key intermediate in the Biginelli reaction was iminium species 16. In the event, 5 reacted with 3a to form an intermediate hemiaminal 17 which subsequently dehydrated to deliver 16. Iminium cation 16 then reacted with 6 to give 14, which underwent facile cyclodehydration to give 15. Kappe also noted that in the absence of 6, bisureide 8 was afforded as a consequence of nueleophilic attack of 16 by urea (3a). This discovery confirmed the conclusion of Folkers and Johnson in 1933. As far as the proposal from 25 years earlier by Sweet and Fissekis, Kappe saw no evidenee by H and NMR spectroscopy that a carbenium ion was a required species in the Biginelli reaetion. When benzaldehyde (5) and ethyl... 

Furthermore, Shutalev and coworkers reported a two-step modification. Urea 43a or thiourea 43b was condensed with 5 in the presence of p-toluenesulfonic acid to deliver a-tosylderivative 44. The enolate of 6 was then allowed to react with 44 to give a substitution product which then cyclized to give the hemiaminal 45. Dehydration of the hemiaminal with p-toluenesulfonic acid delivered 46. 

The synthetic challenge is now reduced to the preparation of intermediates 2-4. Although intermediates 3 and 4 could potentially be derived in short order from very simple precursors (see Scheme 4), intermediate 2 is rather complex, particularly with respect to stereochemistry. Through a short sequence of conventional functional group manipulations, it is conceivable that aldehyde 2 could be derived from intermediate 9. Hydrolysis and keta-lization reactions could then permit the formation of 9 from intermediate 11, the cyclic hemiaminal of the highly stereo-defined acyclic molecule, intermediate 12. 

The removal of the carbohydrate auxiliary group and the hydrolysis of the amino nitriles is achieved by acidolytic cleavage of the hemiaminal /V-glycosidic bond and the concomitant acid-catalyzed solvolysis of the nitrile using either hydrogen chloride in formic acid or hydrogen bromide in acetic acid56 57. 

Spontaneous racemization also occurs during the enzyme-catalyzed acetylation of hemiaminals [59]. It is thought that the racemization occurs owing to ring opening at... 

The addition of ammonia to aldehydes or ketones does not generally give useful products. According to the pattern followed by analogous nucleophiles, the initial products would be expected to be hemiaminals, but these compounds are generally unstable. Most imines with a hydrogen on the nitrogen spontaneously poly-... 

When secondary amines are added to aldehydes or ketones, the initially formed N,N-disubstituted hemiaminals (14) cannot lose water in the same way, and it is possible to isolate them. However, they are generally unstable, and under the reaction conditions usually react further. If no a hydrogen is present, 10 is converted... 

As shown in Scheme 4.3, the Fisher indolization was thought to involve (i) hydrolysis of diethyl dimethylamino acetal 11, (ii) formation ofhydrazone 22, (iii) isomerization ofhydrazone to me-hydrazine 23, and (iv) [3.3] sigmatropic rearrangement followed by ring closure to give indole 16b. Acetal 11 is stable in AcOH at room temperature, but can be readily hydrolyzed to aldehyde 19 at 100 °C, with subsequent cyclization to hemiaminal 20. Hemiaminal 20 was also formed readily... 

It is assumed that in the formation of 2-509, a Knoevenagel condensation of the benzaldehydes 2-511 and tetronic acid 2-512 initially takes place, and this is followed by the generation of a hemiaminal with the aniline 2-510 and an electrophilic substitution. 

Reductive cleavage of the thiazoline C-S bond in heterocycle 193 with -Bu3SnH <1986T3537> followed by in situ hydrolysis of the resulting hemiaminal and protection of nitrogen as its benzyl carbamate gave 194 in 64% overall yield. This was then converted in several steps to potent marine neurotoxin Kainic acid 195 in racemic form (Scheme 27) <1994JOC2773>. 

The final method for constructing epidithiodiketopiperazine motifs relied on the nucleophilic thiolation of /V-acyliminium ions. Access to alpha-oxidized diketopi-perazine structures was central to this approach, and key developments were made in this regard. Schmidt first demonstrated the feasibility of this ionization approach in 1973 by conversion of proline anhydride to its diacetate using Pb(OAc)4 [42], Hydrolysis of the acetates, ionization of the hemiaminals with zinc chloride in the presence of hydrogen sulfide, and oxidation with iodine provided the epidisulfide of interest. In 1975, Matsunari reported access to alpha-methoxy diketopiperazines,... 

The tetraols were found to be highly sensitive toward acidic and basic conditions. Under Bronsted acidic conditions, the hemiaminals readily eliminated to generate a tetraene, while under basic conditions, the tetraol either decomposed or epimerized to generate a mixture of diastereomers. It is speculated that the base-mediated epimerization proceeds through ring-chain tautomerization involving a putative alpha-keto amide derivative. It is also of note that simple dissolution of tetraol (+)-95 in methanol also leads to its degradation to a complex mixture of products. 

The key precept for any strategy would involve complete stereochemical control and precision in the degree of sulfidation. Accordingly, we envisioned that the epipolysulfides could arise from the ionization of a C15 hemiaminal derivative and subsequent cyclization of a polysulfane onto the resultant /V-acyliminium ion. The polysulfane would be derived from the corresponding thiol accessed by regioselective functionalization of the Ca(Trp) position. 

A rather complex microwave-assisted ring-opening of chiral difluorinated epoxy-cyclooctenones has been studied by Percy and coworkers (Scheme 6.131) [265]. The epoxide resisted conventional hydrolysis, but reacted smoothly in basic aqueous media (ammonia or N-methylimidazole) under microwave irradiation at 100 °C for 10 min to afford unique hemiacetals and hemiaminals in good yields. Other nitrogen nucleophiles, such as sodium azide or imidazole, failed to trigger the reaction. The reaction with sodium hydroxide led to much poorer conversion of the starting material. 

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