Ketones chiral auxiliaries

Since most often the selective formation of just one stereoisomer is desired, it is of great importance to develop highly selective methods. For example the second step, the aldol reaction, can be carried out in the presence of a chiral auxiliary—e.g. a chiral base—to yield a product with high enantiomeric excess. This has been demonstrated for example for the reaction of 2-methylcyclopenta-1,3-dione with methyl vinyl ketone in the presence of a chiral amine or a-amino acid. By using either enantiomer of the amino acid proline—i.e. (S)-(-)-proline or (/ )-(+)-proline—as chiral auxiliary, either enantiomer of the annulation product 7a-methyl-5,6,7,7a-tetrahydroindan-l,5-dione could be obtained with high enantiomeric excess. a-Substituted ketones, e.g. 2-methylcyclohexanone 9, usually add with the higher substituted a-carbon to the Michael acceptor ... 

Only few allyltitanium reagents bearing a removable chiral auxiliary at the allylic residue are known. The outstanding example is a metalated 1-alkyl-2-imidazolinone14, derived from (—)-ephedrine, representing a valuable homoenolate reagent. After deprotonation by butyllithium, metal exchange with chlorotris(diethylamino)titanium, and aldehyde or ketone addition, the homoaldol adducts are formed with 94 to 98% diastereoselectivity. 

In addition to ketone enolates, azaenolatcs with chiral auxiliary groups attached to the nitrogen atom are suitable for the introduction of an a-unsubstituted enolate of the keto-type into an aldehyde in a stereoselective manner (see Section D.1.3.5.). 

An excellent synthetic method for asymmetric C—C-bond formation which gives consistently high enantioselectivity has been developed using azaenolates based on chiral hydrazones. (S)-or (/ )-2-(methoxymethyl)-1 -pyrrolidinamine (SAMP or RAMP) are chiral hydrazines, easily prepared from proline, which on reaction with various aldehydes and ketones yield optically active hydrazones. After the asymmetric 1,4-addition to a Michael acceptor, the chiral auxiliary is removed by ozonolysis to restore the ketone or aldehyde functionality. The enolates are normally prepared by deprotonation with lithium diisopropylamide. 

Mukaiyama aldol reactions have been reported, usually using chiral additives although chiral auxiliaries have also been used. This reaction can also be run with the aldehyde or ketone in the form of its acetal R R C(OR )2> in which case the product is the ether R COCHR2CR R OR instead of 27. Enol acetates and enol ethers also give this product when treated with acetals and TiCLi or a similar catalyst. When the catalyst is dibutyltin bis(triflate), Bu2Sn(OTf)2, aldehydes react, but not their acetals, while acetals of ketones react, but not the ketones themselves. 

The enolates of other carbonyl compounds can be used in mixed aldol reactions. Extensive use has been made of the enolates of esters, thiol esters, amides, and imides, including several that serve as chiral auxiliaries. The methods for formation of these enolates are similar to those for ketones. Lithium, boron, titanium, and tin derivatives have all been widely used. The silyl ethers of ester enolates, which are called silyl ketene acetals, show reactivity that is analogous to silyl enol ethers and are covalent equivalents of ester enolates. The silyl thioketene acetal derivatives of thiol esters are also useful. The reactions of these enolate equivalents are discussed in Section 2.1.4. 

The introduction of various metal-catalyzed reactions, however, remarkably expanded the scope of the epoxidation of Q,.3-unsaturatcd ketones. Enders et al. have reported that a combination of diethylzinc and A-methyl-pseudoephedrine epoxidizes various o,. j-unsaturatcd ketones, under an oxygen atmosphere, with good to high enantioselectivity (Scheme 23).126 In this reaction, diethylzinc first reacts with the chiral alcohol, and the resulting ethylzinc alkoxide is converted by oxygen to an ethylperoxo-zinc species that epoxidizes the a,/3-unsaturated ketones enantioselectively. Although a stoichiometric chiral auxiliary is needed for this reaction, it can be recovered in almost quantitative yield. 

It has been reported that the cleavage of SAMP hydrazones can proceed smoothly with a saturated aqueous oxalic acid, and this allows the efficient recovery of the expensive and acid-sensitive chiral auxiliaries SAMP and RAMP. No racemization of the chiral ketones occurs during the weak acid oxalic acid treatment, so this method is essential for compounds sensitive to oxidative cleavage.393... 

As illustrated in Scheme 3 20 and Table 3-5, using 55a or 55b as the chiral auxiliary,, vy -aldol adduct 56 can be obtained with high stereoselectivity via aldol reaction of diethyl ketone with various aldehydes.39... 

Another method for ketone reduction, BINAL-H asymmetric reduction, can also be used in co-side chain synthesis. An example of applying BINAL-H asymmetric reduction in PG synthesis is illustrated in Scheme 7-27. This has been a general method for generating the alcohol with (15. -configuration. The binaphthol chiral auxiliary can easily be recovered and reused. As shown in Scheme 7-27, when the chiral halo enone 91 is reduced by (S -BINAL-H at — 100°C, product (15S)-92 can be obtained with high enantioselectivity. 

Early work on the asymmetric Darzens reaction involved the condensation of aromatic aldehydes with phenacyl halides in the presence of a catalytic amount of bovine serum albumin. The reaction gave the corresponding epoxyketone with up to 62% ee.67 Ohkata et al.68 reported the asymmetric Darzens reaction of symmetric and dissymmetric ketones with (-)-8-phenylmenthyl a-chloroacetate as examples of a reagent-controlled asymmetric reaction (Scheme 8-29). When this (-)-8-phenyl menthol derivative was employed as a chiral auxiliary, Darzens reactions of acetone, pentan-3-one, cyclopentanone, cyclohexanone, or benzophenone with 86 in the presence of t-BuOK provided dia-stereomers of (2J ,3J )-glycidic ester 87 with diastereoselectivity ranging from 77% to 96%. 

In the asymmetric reduction of ketones, stereodifferentiation has been explained in terms of the steric recognition of two substituents on the prochiral carbon by chirally modified reducing agents40. Enantiomeric excesses for the reduction of dialkyl ketones, therefore, are low because of the little differences in the bulkiness of the two alkyl groups40. In the reduction of ketoxime ethers, however, the prochiral carbon atom does not play a central role for the stereoselectivity, and dialkyl ketoxime ethers are reduced in the same enantiomeric excess as are aryl alkyl ketoxime ethers. Reduction of the oxime benzyl ethers of (E)- and (Z)-2-octanone with borane in THF and the chiral auxiliary (1 R,2S) 26 gave (S)- and (R)-2-aminooctane in 80 and 79% ee, respectively39. 

Seebach and Daum (75) investigated the properties of a chiral acyclic diol, 1,4-bis(dimethylamino)-(2S,35)- and (2K,3/ )-butane-2,3-diol (52) as a chiral auxiliary reagent for complexing with LAH. The diol is readily available from diethyl tartrate by conversion to the dimethylamide and reduction with LAH. The diol 52 could be converted to a 1 1 complex (53) with LAH (eq. [18]), which was used for the reduction of aldehydes and ketones in optical yields up to 75%. Since both enantiomers of 53 are available, dextro- or levorotatory products may be prepared. The chiral diol is readily recoverable without loss of optical activity. The (- )-52-LAH complex reduced dialkyl and aryl alkyl ketones to products enriched in the (S)-carbinol, whereas (+ )-52-LAH gives the opposite result. The highest optical yield of 75% was obtained in the reduction of 2,4,6-... 

The reduction of phenyl mesityl ketone was studied with LAH modified with amino alcohols 65 to 72 in ether (the ratio LAH alcohol ketone = 1.1 1.1 1) (83). Optical yields were modest, with the highest 39%, obtained with 65 as the chiral auxiliary reagent. It was observed that there is a relationship between the preferred enantiomeric product and the structure and absolute configuration of the carbons carrying the hydroxy and amino groups. Thus the threo... 

The optical yield was found to be very sensitive to structural modifications of the achiral agent. For example, use of the more bulky FV or Bu substituents in the 3,5-positions of phenol resulted in lower optical yields. In some cases a reversal of the sense of asymmetric induction was observed. Systematic variation of reaction conditions using the best achiral component, 3,5-xylenol, established that optimum results were obtained in ether solvent at about - 15°C. There was also a minor but definite influence of the rate of addition of ketone as well as an effect of concentration on optical yield, with a slower rate being advantageous. The results of reduction of aryl alkyl ketones are shown in Table 9, along with comparative results of reduction with similar chiral auxiliary reagents. 

The modification of lithium aluminum hydride with chiral auxiliary reagents has resulted in several highly effective reagents, particularly for the reduction of aryl alkyl ketones and a,0-acetylenic ketones. Applications of several of these reagents to key reduction steps in more complex syntheses have been highly successful. Chiral tricoordinate aluminum reagents have given lower enantiomeric excesses of alcohols. 

Asymmetric electroreduction of ketones to the corresponding chiral alcohols has recently been reported. Typical examples are the reduction of ketones bearing chiral auxiliaries [68, 69], and the indirect reduction of ketones with alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), as a mediator (Scheme 32) [70]. 

The use of chiral auxiliaries has been developed into elegant three-step sequences to achieve high ee s (Figure 2). In the general scheme a ketone is derivatized with a chiral amine. Low temperature lithiation and alkylation followed by hydrolysis produces the alkylated ketone in moderate to excellent ee s. The auxiliaries most often used are (S)-valine tert-butyl ester (Koga), l-amino-2-methoxymethylpyrrolidine (Enders) and (S)-2-amino-1-... 

A further step towards improved selectivity in aldol condensations is found in the work of David A. Evans. The work of Evans [3a] [14] is based in some early observations from Meyers laboratory [15] and the fact that boron enolates may be readily prepared under mild conditions from ketones and dialkylboron triflates [16]. Detailed investigations with Al-propionylpyrrolidine (31) indicate that the enolisation process (LDA, THE) affords the enolate 32 with at least 97% (Z>diastereoselection (Scheme 9.8). Finally, the observation that the inclusion of potential chelating centres enhance aldol diastereoselection led Evans to study the boron enolates 34 of A(-acyl-2-oxazolidones (33), which allow not only great diastereoselectivity (favouring the 5yn-isomer) in aldol condensations, but offer a possible solution to the problem of enantioselective total syntheses (with selectivities greater than 98%) of complex organic molecules (see below, 9.3.2), by using a recyclisable chiral auxiliary. 

Darzens reaction of (-)-8-phenylmethyl a-chloroacetate (and a-bromoacetate) with various ketones (Scheme 2) yields ctT-glycidic esters (28) with high geometric and diastereofacial selectivity which can be explained in terms of both open-chain or non-chelated antiperiplanar transition state models for the initial aldol-type reaction the ketone approaches the Si-f ce of the Z-enolate such that the phenyl ring of the chiral auxiliary and the enolate portion are face-to-face. Aza-Darzens condensation reaction of iV-benzylideneaniline has also been studied. Kinetically controlled base-promoted lithiation of 3,3-diphenylpropiomesitylene results in Z enolate ratios in the range 94 6 (lithium diisopropylamide) to 50 50 (BuLi), depending on the choice of solvent and temperature. ... 

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