Imines radical additions

MeON=CH(CH2)3CHO with BusSnH and AIBN, for example led to trans-2-(methoxyamino)cyclopentanol in good yield.Addition of radical to the C=N unit of R—C=N—SPh or R—C=N—OBz led to cyclic imines. Radical addition to... 

Radical cyclization is not limited to reaction with a C=C unit (see 15-29 and 15-30), and reactions with both C=N and C=0 moieties are known. Reaction of MeON=CH(CH2)3CHO with Bu3SnH and AIBN, for example, led to trans-2-(methoxyamino)cyclopentanol in good yield.Conjugated ketones add to aldehyde via the p-carbon under radical conditions (2 equivalents of Bu3SnH and 0.1 equivalent of CuCl) to give a p-hydroxy ketone.Addition of radical to the C=N unit of R C=N SPh ° or R—C=N—led to cyclic imines. Radical addition to simple imines leads to aminocycloalkenes. Radical also add to the carbonyl unit of phenylthio esters to give cyclic ketones. 

Clerici and Porta reported that phenyl, acetyl and methyl radicals add to the Ca atom of the iminium ion, PhN+Me=CHMe, formed in situ by the titanium-catalyzed condensation of /V-methylanilinc with acetaldehyde to give PhNMeCHMePh, PhNMeCHMeAc, and PhNMeCHMe2 in 80% overall yield.83 Recently, Miyabe and co-workers studied the addition of various alkyl radicals to imine derivatives. Alkyl radicals generated from alkyl iodide and triethylborane were added to imine derivatives such as oxime ethers, hydrazones, and nitrones in an aqueous medium.84 The reaction also proceeds on solid support.85 A-sulfonylimines are also effective under such reaction conditions.86 Indium is also effective as the mediator (Eq. 11.49).87 A tandem radical addition-cyclization reaction of oxime ether and hydrazone was also developed (Eq. 11.50).88 Li and co-workers reported the synthesis of a-amino acid derivatives and amines via the addition of simple alkyl halides to imines and enamides mediated by zinc in water (Eq. 11.51).89 The zinc-mediated radical reaction of the hydrazone bearing a chiral camphorsultam provided the corresponding alkylated products with good diastereoselectivities that can be converted into enantiomerically pure a-amino acids (Eq. 11.52).90... 

Radical additions to imines, nitrones, and related compounds 401... 

Other examples of ZnR2-initiated radical additions to C=N bond-containing compounds can be found in a recent review by Miyabe et al 7 Overall, radical additions to imines and related derivatives may be considered as a valuable alternative to nucleophilic additions, particularly for the introduction of secondary and tertiary alkyl groups. In general, organozinc-mediated radical reactions are a new and significant direction with great potential.382,385... 

One possible solution of this problem is to differentiate a radical first as electrophilic or nucleophilic with respect to its partner, depending upon its tendency to gain or lose electron. Then the relevant atomic Fukui function (/+ or / ) or softness f.v+ or s ) should be used. Using this approach, regiochemistry of radical addition to heteratom C=X double bond (aldehydes, nitrones, imines, etc.) and heteronuclear ring compounds (such as uracil, thymine, furan, pyridine, etc.) could be explained [34], A more rigorous approach will be to define the Fukui function for radical attack in such a way that it takes care of the inherent nature of a radical and thus differentiates one radical from the other. 

Intramolecular addition of trialkylboranes to imines and related compounds have been reported and the main results are part of review articles [94, 95]. Addition of ethyl radicals generated from Et3B to aldimines affords the desired addition product in fair to good yield but low diaster control (Scheme 40, Eq. 40a) [96]. Similar reactions with aldoxime ethers [97], aldehyde hydrazones [97], and N-sulfonylaldimines [98] are reported. Radical addition to ketimines has been recently reported (Eq. 40b) [99]. Addition of triethylborane to 2H-azirine-3-carboxylate derivatives is reported [100]. Very recently, Somfai has extended this reaction to the addition of different alkyl radicals generated from trialkylboranes to a chiral ester of 2ff-azirine-3-carboxylate under Lewis acid activation with CuCl (Eq. 40c) [101]. 

Radical addition of organoboranes to imines and related compounds is a promising alternative to the use of classical organometallic compound (see... 

In the presence of an alkyl iodide, selective alkyl radical addition to the C-atom of the imine generated in situ occurs, overcoming the competitive phenylation reaction (Equation 14.20) [30]. The Ph- radical, generated by decomposition of the diazonium salt, as described before, generates the alkyl radical by selective iodine atom transfer (Equation 14.21). 

Scheme 14.7 General mechanism for the nucleophilic radical addition to imines mediated by Ti (IV).

Even imines formed by in situ condensation of aromatic amines with either acetaldehyde or formaldehyde afforded the desired products. The successful radical addition to these rather unstable and polymerizable imines in aqueous medium may be ascribed to the lack of steric hindrance at the C-atom. 

Early examples of intramolecular aryl radical addition reactions to heteroatom containing multiple bonds included cyclizations on N=N and C=S moieties [52, 53]. Recently, cyclizations to imines have been used as part of a new enantio-selective approach to indolines (Scheme 8). In the first step of the sequence, the required ketimines 19 were obtained by phase-transfer catalyzed alkylation of 2-bromobenzyl bromides 20 with glycinyl imines 21 in the presence of a cincho-nidinium salt [54], Due to the favorable substitution pattern on the imine moiety of 19, the tributyltin hydride mediated radical cyclization to 22 occurred exclusively in the 5-exo mode. The indoline synthesis can therefore also be classified as a radical amination. 

The C=N bond of simple imines possesses modest reactivity toward intermolecular radical additions, so such acceptors have rarely been exploited. To enhance their reactivity toward nucleophilic radicals, electron-withdrawing groups at the imine carbon have been effective, as demonstrated by Bertrand in radical additions to a-iminoesters prepared from chiral amines [25]. Also, more reactive oxime ethers have been exploited extensively for radical addition, mainly through the longstanding efforts of Naito [26]. In most cases, stereocontrol has been imparted through the substituents on the imino carbon chiral O-substituents on oximes for stereocontrol were ineffective, presumably due to poor rotamer control [27, 28]. 

Rusling et al. performed electrochemically and light mediated radical additions of alkyl iodides to cyclohexenone in conductive microemulsions catalyzed by 20 mol% of 247 in 14—81% yield [303]. Radical allylations of alkyl bromides 249 with allyl sulfides, sulfones, or phosphates catalyzed by 5 mol% of cobalt (iminate) complex 250 in the presence of zinc as reducing agent proceeded in 52-85% yield [304],... 

Indolines can also be prepared by radical cyclization. For example, the precursor 62 was annulated to the indoline 63 with incorporation of a N-substituent originating from the ketone component (Equation 16). This reaction seems to proceed via aryl radical addition onto an initially formed imine <20010L1009>. 

The quinoline formation from 2,4-dinitrophenyl oximes suggested to us the possibility of generating radical intermediates and prompted us to study the synthesis of cyclic imines by iminyl radical addition to an internal olefinic moiety as shown in Scheme 44. 

Furthermore, we also performed kinetic studies for alkyl radical additions onto different types of C=N bonds such as imines and oxime ethers. The kinetic data are summarized in Figure S. Kinetic analysis of the intramolecular addition of alkyl radicals to C=N bonds provides several experimentally important results. First, alkyl radical additions to C=N bonds are much faster than the corresponding additions to C=C bonds, indicating that C=N bonds are much better radical acceptors than C=C bonds. Furthermore, 5-exo cyclization is faster than 6-exo cyclization. Second, the intramolecular additions of alkyl radicals to C=N bonds are essentially irreversible. Third, alkyl radical additions to oxime ethers and hydrazones are faster than alkyl radical additions to imines, suggesting the possibility of a dependence of the cyclization rate on the electron density at the carbon atom of the radical acceptor. 

C-C bond formation in inter- or intramolecular additions starting with olefin [ 199, 200], ketyl [201] (generated by PET [202], chemical or cathodic [24, 203] reduction) [204, 205] or imine radical anions [206] has become a versatile method. In general, the intramolecular addition is highly suitable for the construction of five membered rings, less so for six-, and not effective for seven-membered ring formation. 

When a disubstituted imine (19a-d) is employed instead of the trisubstituted imine, in addition to the homoallylamine (20) also the hydrodimer (21) of the imine, i.e., the dimer of the postulated a-aminobenzyl radical, is isolated (Figure 30) [214, 45]. The observation that the hydrodimer is produced only from the disubstituted and not from the trisubstituted imine parallels the electrochemical reduction which affords hydrodimers from aldimines [215] but not from ketimines [215, 216]. 

Intermolecular alkyl radical addition to imine derivatives was studied in aqueous media using indium as a single electron transfer radical initiator. The one-pot reaction based on radical addition to glyoxylic hydrazone provided a convenient method for preparing the a-amino acids. Indium-mediated radical addition to an electron-deficient C=C bond also proceeded effectively to provide a new carbon-carbon bond-forming method in aqueous media (Scheme 7.11).15... 

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