Intramolecular Ester Formation Lactones

Hydroxy acids, compounds that contain both a hydroxyl and a carboxylic acid function, have the capacity to form cyclic esters called lactones. This intramolecular esterification takes place spontaneously when the ring that is formed is five- or six-membered. Lactones that contain a five-membered cyclic ester are referred to as -lactones their six-membered analogs are known as 8-lactones. 

Lactones are named by replacing the -oic acid ending of the parent carboxylic acid by -olide and identifying its oxygenated carbon by number as illustrated in the preceding equations. 

Reactions that are expected to produce hydroxy acids often yield the derived lactones instead if a five- or six-membered ring can be formed. 

Sample Solution (a) The ring oxygen of the lactone is derived from the OH group of the hydroxy acid. To identify the hydroxy acid, disconnect the 0—C(0) bond of the lactone. 

Lactones with three- or four-membered rings (a-lactones and (B-lactones) are very reactive, making their isolation difficult. Special methods are normally required for the laboratory synthesis of small-ring lactones as well as those that contain rings larger than six-membered. 

---

In Summary Carboxylic acids react with alcohols to form esters, as long as a mineral acid catalyst is present. This reaction is only shghtly exothermic, and its equilibrium may be shifted in either direction by the choice of reaction conditions. The reverse of ester formation is ester hydrolysis. The mechanism of esterification is add-catalyzed addition of alcohol to the carbonyl group followed by acid-catalyzed dehydration. Intramolecular ester formation results in lactones, favored only when five- or six-manbered rings are produced. 

Intramolecular cycUzation mechanisms are also known for the related thioesters. Activation of solid-supported thioesters affords lactones in the case of 0-nucleophiles and lactams in the case of N-nucleophiles. For these cyclizations no special linker structures are required and lactam as well as lactone formation have been pubhshed on the Vlattas-linker systems 82-84 (see Fig. 7). The lactone formation by Bradley et aL (Scheme 15) shows the utility of thioesters for intramolecular ester formation [138]. 

In the presence of a double bond at a suitable position, the CO insertion is followed by alkene insertion. In the intramolecular reaction of 552, different products, 553 and 554, are obtained by the use of diflerent catalytic spe-cies[408,409]. Pd(dba)2 in the absence of Ph,P affords 554. PdCl2(Ph3P)3 affords the spiro p-keto ester 553. The carbonylation of o-methallylbenzyl chloride (555) produced the benzoannulated enol lactone 556 by CO, alkene. and CO insertions. In addition, the cyclobutanone derivative 558 was obtained as a byproduct via the cycloaddition of the ketene intermediate 557[4I0]. Another type of intramolecular enone formation is used for the formation of the heterocyclic compounds 559[4l I]. The carbonylation of the I-iodo-1,4-diene 560 produces the cyclopentenone 561 by CO. alkene. and CO insertions[409,4l2]. 

Intramolecular ylide formation with the lactone carbonyl oxygen (53) in 145 provided a carbonyl ylide 146 that was trapped with Al-phenyl maleimide to give cycloadduct 147. Likewise (54), carbonyl yhde 149, derived from ester 148, suffers intramolecular cycloaddition with the tethered alkene to deliver acetal 150 in 87% yield. An enantioselective version of this process has also been described (Scheme 4.33). 

While still useful for large-scale esterification of fairly robust carboxylic acids, Fischer esterification is generally not useful in small-scale reactions because the esterification depends on an acid-catalyzed equilibrium to produce the ester. The equilibrium is usually shifted to the side of the products by adding an excess of one of the reactants—usually the alcohol—and refluxing until equilibrium is established, typically several hours. The reaction is then quenched with base to freeze the equilibrium and the ester product is separated from the excess alcohol and any unreacted acid. This separation is easily accomplished on a large scale where distillation is often used to separate the product from the by-products. For small-scale reactions where distillation is not a viable option, the separation is often difficult or tedious. Consequently Fischer esterification is not widely used for ester formation in small-scale laboratory situations. In contrast, intramolecular Fischer esterification is very effective on a small scale for the closure of hydroxy acids to lactones. Here the equilibrium is driven by tire removal of water and no other reagents are needed. Moreover the closure is favored entropically and proceeds easily. 

No 0-allylation is observed in formation of the six-membered ring compound 79 by intramolecular allylation of the /3-keto ester 78(15,57]. Intramolecular allylation is useful for lactone fonnation. On the other hand, exclusive formation of the eight-membered ring lactone 81 from 80 may be in part derived from the preference for the nucleophile to attack the less substituted terminus of the allyl system[58]. 

Intramolecular cycloadditions of substrates with a cleavable tether have also been realized. Thus esters (37a-37d) provided the structurally interesting tricyclic lactones (38-43). It is interesting to note that the cyclododecenyl system (w = 7) proceeded at room temperature whereas all others required refluxing dioxane. In each case, the stereoselectivity with respect to the tether was excellent. As expected, the cyclohexenyl (n=l) and cycloheptenyl (n = 2) gave the syn adducts (38) and (39) almost exclusively. On the other hand, the cyclooctenyl (n = 3) and cyclododecenyl (n = 7) systems favored the anti adducts (41) and (42) instead. The formation of the endocyclic isomer (39, n=l) in the cyclohexenyl case can be explained by the isomerization of the initial adduct (44), which can not cyclize due to ring-strain, to the other 7t-allyl-Pd intermediate (45) which then ring-closes to (39) (Scheme 2.13) [20]. While the yields may not be spectacular, it is still remarkable that these reactions proceeded as well as they did since the substrates do contain another allylic ester moiety which is known to undergo ionization in the presence of the same palladium catalyst. 

Recently, dipolarophile 1)13 (fumaronitrile) (777) has been used in the synthesis of indolizine lactone (677). Both, intermolecular and intramolecular cycloadditions were studied. Intermolecular 1,3-cycloaddition of nitrone (671) to D13 led to the formation of isoxazolidine (672). Subsequent deprotection and esterification of the obtained alcohol (673) with (674) gave isoxazolidine (675) in 65% yield. Ester (675), when refluxed in xylene for 10 min, after elimination of fumaronitrile by cyclo-reversion, underwent spontaneously intramolecular cycloaddition to give the tricyclic cycloadduct (676) in 84% yield (Scheme 2.291). 

Intramolecular alkoxycarbonylation of alkynols is parallel to what has been described for alkenols except that functionalization of the triplebond produces a double bond. No lactone formation is observed in the Pd(II)-catalyzed oxidative cyclization-carbonylation of alkynes. Instead [(methoxycarbonyl)methylene]tetrahydrofurans are selectively formed [134, 135]. Moreover, starting from an enynol, furan-2-acetic ester is obtained resulting from a final aromatization step [136]. 

Lemer and Benkovic examined the possibility of performing an intramolecular cyclisation reaction [30]. They chose the formation of a six-membered lactone ring from a hydroxy ester (12) and observed that only one single enantiomer of the 5-lactone (14) in 94% ee was formed from the corresponding 5-hydroxy ester. Moreover, the stereospecific ring closure reaction was accelerated by the antibody -elicited from the transition-state analog 15- by about a factor of 170. 

---