Isocyanide complexes catalyzed reactions

A cyclopentadienylcopper-fcr/-butyl isocyanide complex catalyzes the Michael addition of dimethyl methylmalonate to acrylonitrile at room temperature to give an S6% yield of the adduct 249). As the CU2O—BNC complex can also catalyze the addition of indene to methyl acrylate, the intermediate is most likely an organocopper complex. The reactions and kinetic data support the mechanism given by Eq. (118) to (120), involving metalation and nucleophilic attack by the carbanion on the olefin within the complex. Displacement of a solvent ligand by the olefin and coordination of the latter to the copper species are essential features of the mechanism. The rate of reaction is decreased if the compound with the... 

While on the subject of reviews, attention should also be directed to a very recent collection of articles on isocyanide chemistry edited by Ugi 156). This volume is oriented somewhat toward the organic chemistry of isocyanides, but not with the complete exclusion of metal complexes of these species one is directed in particular to the chapters by Vogler (Chapter 10) on coordinated isocyanides and by Saegusa and Ito (Chapter 4) on a-additions to isocyanides. These latter reactions are often catalyzed by copper(I) compounds and occasionally by other metal complexes as well, and it is believed that this catalysis is accomplished by intermediate formation of metal isocyanide complexes. 

The subjects of structure and bonding in metal isocyanide complexes have been discussed before 90, 156) and will not be treated extensively here. A brief discussion of this subject is presented in Section II of course, special emphasis is given to the more recent information which has appeared. Several areas of current study in the field of transition metal-isocyanide complexes have become particularly important and are discussed in this review in Section III. These include the additions of protonic compounds to coordinated isocyanides, probably the subject most actively being studied at this time insertion reactions into metal-carbon bonded species nucleophilic reactions with metal isocyanide complexes and the metal-catalyzed a-addition reactions. Concurrent with these new developments, there has been a general expansion of descriptive chemistry of isocyanide-metal complexes, and further study of the physical properties of selected species. These developments are summarized in Section IV. 

Various a-addition reactions are observed to be metal- or acid-catalyzed, or to be uncatalyzed. In this review only the metal-catalyzed reactions will be discussed, since it is generally assumed that metal isocyanide complexes are involved in these systems. A number of metal-catalyzed a-addition reactions have been mentioned recently. Copper(I) oxide seems to be the most commonly used catalyst, although other metal complexes sometimes are satisfactory. Table III presents a partial survey of this work. 

The indazoline products can also be made directly from the palladium complexes 78 by heating them with the isonitrile in toluene at 120CC.162 They are also formed in dicobalt octacarbonyl-catalyzed reactions of azo-arenes with isocyanides but in this case an alternative reaction pathway leading to indazolo[2,l- ]indazoles (79) is observed (Scheme 96).163 Products of the latter type are formed from sterically hindered isocyanides hence it is likely that in these cases a double metallation is favored over isocyanide insertion into a monometallated species (Scheme 97). 

Addition of disilanes to isocyanides is catalyzed by palladium complexes, giving A-substituted bis(silyl)imino-methanes (Equation (53)).132 A wide range of isocyanides including aryl isocyanides and alkyl isocyanides can take part in the reaction. However, it is important to note that tert-alkyl isocyanides hardly undergo the bis-silylation reaction. This low reactivity of / r/-alkyl isocyanides allows their use as spectator ligands in the catalytic bis-silylations. 

Lazar, M. and Angelici, R.J. (2005) Gold metal-catalyzed reactions of isocyanides with primary amines and oxygen analogies with reactions of isocyanides in transition metal complexes. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 128, 10513. 

For a catalytic reaction to be feasible, the product should be readily released from the metal complex in order that the cycle may continue. In other words, the substrate should coordinate more strongly than the product to the metal catalyst. A few catalytic oxidations are known. Thus, autoxidation of tri-phenylphosphine and terf-butyl isocyanide is catalyzed by several Group VIII metal-dioxygen complexes,487 490 e.g.,... 

The ferrocenylphosphine-silver complex catalyzes the aldol-type reaction of tosylmethyl isocyanide 71 with aldehydes with higher stereoselectivity than the gold complex (Scheme 2-59) [84]. The reaction with several aldehydes produces trans-4-tosyloxazolines 72 in up to 86% ee, which can be converted into optically active l-alkyl-2-aminoethanols by reduction with LiAlH4. 

A 2-propenylidene transfer reaction utilizing vinyldiazomethane has been examined under copper-catalyzed conditions. Cu(OTf )2 and Cu(acac-F6)2 have been found to be the catalysts of choice Dichloropropenes transfer 2-propenylidenes to electron-deficient double bonds upon treatment with a copper-isocyanide complex ... 

In place of carbon monoxide, isocyanides are often used as the isoelectronic compound. In 1986, Jones et al. reported that the low-valent ruthenium phosphine complex catalyzed intramolecular insertion of isocyanide into the sp3 C-H bond under thermal conditions (Eq. 33) [60,61 ]. Their finding provided a new route for synthesis of indole. An interesting feature of their reaction is that C-H bond cleavage occurs even in the presence of an excess of the trapping ligand, i.e., isocyanide. 

Another approach is the use of multicomponent reactions (MCRs) to rapidly and efficiently construct structurally complex and varied polycyclic natural product-like compounds (Figure 1.5). A number of synthetic transformations played a key role in the rapid assembly of such molecules including isocyanide-based reactions, aza- and non-aza [4+2] cycloadditions, [3+2] cycloadditions, and dansition-metal-catalyzed reactions. Using isocyanide-based MCRs, pyrrolopyridines exemplified by mappicine represent an atttactive library target for their biological activity. Furthermore, the furoquinoline alkaloid tecleabine represents a common quinoline alkaloid core similar to strnctnres fonnd in a polycyclic library. ... 

In analogy t 0 the Cu(II) complex systems, the silver(I) -catalyzed aldol reaction is also proposed to proceed smoothly through a Lewis acidic activation of carbonyl compounds. Since Ito and co-workers reported the first example of the asymmetric aldol reaction of tosylmethyl isocyanide and aldehydes in the presence of a chiral silver(I)-phosphine complex (99,100), the catalyst systems of sil-ver(I) and chiral phosphines have been applied successfully in the aldol reaction of tin enolates and aldehydes (101), Mukaiyama aldol reaction (102), and aldol reaction of alkenyl trichloroacetates and aldehydes (103). In the Ag(I)-disphosphine complex catalyzed aldol reaction, Momiyama and Yamamoto have also examined an aldol-type reaction of tin enolates and nitrosobenzene with different silver-phosphine complexes (Scheme 15). The catalytic activity and enantioselectivity of AgOTfi(f )-BINAP (2 1) complex that a metal center coordinated to one phosphine and triflate were relay on solvent effect dramatically (Scheme) (104). One catalyst system solves two problems for the synthesis of different O- and AT-nitroso aldol adducts under controlled conditions. 

Imidazolines are also formed in silver cyanide-catalyzed cyclization of alkyl isocyanides with aliphatic diamines (Scheme 103).169 This simple synthesis can be applied in a general way with difunctional nucleophiles and has been used to prepare benzimidazoles, oxazoles, thiazoles, and oxazines.169 It is suggested that transient carbene complexes are formed in these reactions (cf. 87 in Scheme 103) but further work is required to ascertain the mechanism and scope of these processes. 

A few additional Pd-catalyzed schemes have been employed for Ilac type cyclization chemistry. Palladium-phenanthroline complexes were used by the Ragaini group to prepare indoles via the intermolecular cyclization of nitroarenes and alkynes in the presence of carbon monoxide <06JOC3748>. Jia and Zhu employed Pd-catalysis for the annulation of o-haloanilines with aldehydes <06JOC7826>. A one-pot Ugi/Heck reaction was employed in the preparation of polysubstituted indoles from a four-component reaction system of acrylic aldehydes, bromoanilines, acids, and isocyanides <06TL4683>. 

Aldol reactions of isocyanides with aldehydes are catalyzed by cationic platinum complexes having P-C-P or N-C-N ligands in the presence of a catalytic amount of an amine base to give 2-oxazolines (Equation (126)) 48S>485a>485b Platinum-coordinated a-isocyano carbanions presumably serve as nucleophiles toward aldehydes. Low to moderate enantioselectivities were obtained by using chiral platinum complexes.485 4853... 

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