Imine ligands palladium-catalyzed allylation

Takemoto and coworkers extended their palladium-catalyzed asymmetric allylic alkylation strategy using allyl acetate and chiral phase-transfer catalyst to the quaternization of 13 [23b]. A correct choice of the achiral palladium ligand, (PhO P, was again crucial to achieve high enantioselectivity and hence, without chiral phosphine ligand on palladium, the desired allylation product 15 was obtained with 83% ee after hydrolysis of the imine moiety with aqueous citric acid and subsequent benzoylation (Scheme 2.12). 

It is very well known that jr-allyl palladium complex 1, which is a key intermediate for the Tsuji-Trost type allylation, has an electrophilic character and reacts with nucleophiles to afford the corresponding allylation products. We discovered that bis 7r-allyl palladium complex 2 is nucleophilic and reacts with electophiles such as aldehydes [27] and imines [28-32] (Scheme 2, Structure 2). We have also shown that bis 7r-allyl palladium complex 2 can act as an amphiphilic catalytic allylating agent it reacts with both nucleophilic and electrophilic carbons at once to produce double allylation products [33]. These complexes incorporate two allyl moieties that can bind with different hapticity to palladium (Scheme 3). The different complexes may interconvert by ligand coordination. The complexes 2a, 2b and 2c are called as r]3,r]3-bisallypalladium complex (also called bis-jr-allylpalladium complex), r)l,r)3-bis(allyl)palladium complex, -bis(allyl)palladium complex, respectively. Bis zr-allyl palladium complex 2 can easily be generated by reaction of mono-allylpalladium complex 1 and allylmetal species 3 (Scheme 4) [33-36]. Because of the unique catalytic activities of the bis zr-allyl palladium complex 2, a number of interesting cascade reactions appeared in the literature. The subject of the present chapter is to review some recent synthetic and mechanistic aspects of the interesting palladium catalyzed cascade reactions which in-... 

---