Ketones, 2-hydroxy synthesis

Other methods for a-hydroxy ketone synthesis are addition of O2 to an enolate followed by reduction of the a-hydroperoxy ketone using triethyl phosphite 9 the molybdenum peroxide-pyridine-HMPA oxidation of enolates 10 photooxygenation of enol ethers followed by triphenylphosphine reduction 11 the epoxidation of trimethyl silyl enol ethers by peracid 1 - the oxidation of trimethylsilyl enol ethers by osmium tetroxide in N-methylmorpholine N-... 

Other methods for a-hydroxy ketone synthesis are addition of O2 to an enolate followed by reduction of the a-hydroperoxy ketone using triethyl... 

Hasegawa, E., Chiba, N., Nakajima, A., Suzuki, K., Yoneoka, A., and Iwaya, K., l,3-dimethyl-2-phenyl-benzimidazoline (DMPBl)-acetic acid an effective reagent system for photoinduced reductive transformation of a,P-epoxy ketones to P-hydroxy ketones. Synthesis, 1248, 2001. 

Hoesch synthesis A variation of the Gattermann synthesis of hydroxy-aldehydes, this reaction has been widely applied to the synthesis of anthocyanidins. It consists of the condensation of polyhydric phenols with nitriles by the action of hydrochloric acid (with or without ZnCl2 as a catalyst). This gives an iminehydrochloride which on hydrolysis with water gives the hydroxy-ketone. 

The synthesis of hydroxy ketone A, via a different reduction process as shown below ... 

Upon heating of a carboxylic ester 1 with sodium in an inert solvent, a condensation reaction can take place to yield a a-hydroxy ketone 2 after hydrolytic workup. " This reaction is called Acyloin condensation, named after the products thus obtained. It works well with alkanoic acid esters. For the synthesis of the corresponding products with aryl substituents (R = aryl), the Benzoin condensation of aromatic aldehydes is usually applied. 

Stork s elegant use of a protected cyanohydrin function in the synthesis of PGF2a (2) is also noteworthy. The electron-withdrawing cyano substituent in intermediate 21 (Scheme 7) confers nucleophilic potential to C-9 and permits the construction of the saturated cyclopentane nucleus of PGF2a (2) through intramolecular alkylation. In addition, the C-9 cyanohydrin function contained within 40 is stable under the acidic conditions used to accomplish the conversion of 39 to 40 (see Scheme 7), and it thus provides suitable protection for an otherwise labile /J-hydroxy ketone. 

The reaction processes shown in Scheme 8 not only accomplish the construction of an oxepane system but also furnish a valuable keto function. The realization that this function could, in an appropriate setting, be used to achieve the annulation of the second oxepane ring led to the development of a new strategy for the synthesis of cyclic ethers the reductive cyclization of hydroxy ketones (see Schemes 9 and 10).23 The development of this strategy was inspired by the elegant work of Olah 24 the scenario depicted in Scheme 9 captures its key features. It was anticipated that activation of the Lewis-basic keto function in 43 with a Lewis acid, perhaps trimethylsilyl triflate, would induce nucleophilic attack by the proximal hydroxyl group to give an intermediate of the type 44. 

Scheme 10. Synthesis of compound 49 by the reductive hydroxy ketone cyclization method.

Scheme 11. Bis(oxepane) synthesis using a photochemical dithioester cyclization and a reductive hydroxy ketone cyclization.

Schreiber found that the monoalkylation of the lithium enolate of cyclonona-none with propene oxide could be cleanly effected by addition of AlMe3 to give the y-hydroxy ketone 145, a key intermediate for the synthesis of recifeiolide [69a]. 

As an extension of this work, the same authors explored such methodology for the synthesis of 2,6-disubstituted dihydropyrans using secondary homopropargylic alcohols (Scheme 10, route E). Surprisingly, the treatment of pent-4-yn-2-ol and 3-methylbutanal in the presence of FeCls led to unsaturated ( )-(3-hydroxyketone and ( )-a,p-unsaturated ketone in 2.5 1 ratio and 65% yield, without any trace of the expected Prins-type cyclic product (Scheme 22) [36]. To test the anion influence in this coupling, FeCE and FeBrs were used in a comparative study for the reaction of pent-4-yn-2-ol (R = R" = H, = Me) and several aldehydes. A range of aldehydes except for benzaldehyde was transformed into unsaturated (3-hydroxy-ketones in moderate to good yields. 

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