Mannich ketone donors

The easiest way to perform a Mannich reaction is to use an excess of the ketone donor and an aldehyde-amine pair to form the required imine in situ. This three-component Mannich protocol is, however, mostly restricted to aromatic amines (Scheme 24). 

The List group developed an efficient synthesis for syn Mannich products by using proline as a catalyst and ketone donors [23], Starting from 2-butanone as... 

Table 2.15 (S)-Proline-catalyzed Mannich-type reactions of ketone donors and glyoxylate imines.

S)-Proline also catalyzed Mannich reactions of ketone donors in a three-component (donor ketone, 4-methoxyaniline, aryaldehyde) protocol, as shown in Table 2.16 [84b, 90, 91]. In these three component reactions, the C-C bond formation occurred at both a-positions of unsymmetrical alkyl ketones (entry 3), and the ratio of the regioisomers depended on the reactant ketones and aldehydes. When the reaction was performed using a ketone donor possessing an a-hydroxy or methoxy group, C-C bond formation occurred exclusively at the oxy-substituted a-carbon (entries 5-7) the major diastereomer was again the syn-product. The enantioselectivities of (S)-proline-catalyzed three-component... 

Table 2.17 ant/ -Mannich-type reactions of ketone donors and /N/-PMP-protected glyoxylate imine catalyzed by (R)-3-pyrrolidine-carboxylic acid (18). 

Enders and co-workers [162] have reported a protocol for the synthesis of aminopentoses and aminohexoses based on the use of 2,2-dimethyl-l,3-dioxan-5-one (25) as the ketone donor in a three-component Mannich reaction with several aldehydes and p-anisidine in the presence of L-proline or (fert-butyl)dimethylsilyloxy-L-proline as organocatalysts. 

Scheme 5.3 Various ketone donors in the three-component Mannich reaction...

Not long after List published his three-component methodology, the group of Barbas reported a fairly similar procedure [3]. Besides L-proUne (1), a penicillamine derivative appeared to effectively catalyze the reaction. Later on, various ketone donors 7b, 7e-g were successfully subjected to the preformed iV-PMP-protected a-imino ethyl glyoxylate 10a as imine acceptor, thereby yielding y-oxo-a-amino acid derivatives lla-d as the products (Scheme 5.4). Analogous to the results of List, the reactions proceeded smoothly resulting in Mannich products with excellent yn-selectivity in complete enantiomerically pure form [4],... 

The first asymmetric enamine-catalyzed Mannich reactions were described by List in 2000 [208]. Paralleling the development of the enamine-catalyzed aldol reactions, the first asymmetric Mannich reactions were catalyzed by proline, and a range of cyclic and acyclic aliphatic ketones were used as donors (Schemes 24 and 25). In contrast to the aldol reaction, however, most Mannich reactions are syn selective. This is presumably due to the larger size of the imine acceptor, forcing the imine and the enamine to approach each other in a different manner than is possible with aldehyde acceptors (Scheme 23). 

Enamine nucleophiles react readily with soft conjugated electrophiles, such as a, 3-unsaturated carbonyl, nitro, and sulfonyl compounds [20-22], Both aldehydes and ketones can be used as donors (Schemes 27 and 28). These Michael-type reactions are highly useful for the construction of carbon skeletons and often the yields are very high. The problem, however, is the enantioselectivity of the process. Unlike the aldol and Mannich reactions, where even simple proline catalyst can effectively direct the addition to the C = O or C = N bond by its carboxylic acid moiety, in conjugate additions the charge develops further away from the catalyst (Scheme 26) ... 

This protocol complements Akiyama s method which provides P-amino carbonyl compounds as i yn-diastereomers [14], It tolerated aromatic, heteroaromatic, and aliphatic aldehydes. Cyclic ketones, acetone, as well as acetophenone derivatives could be employed. The use of aromatic ketones as Mannich donors was up to that time unprecedented in asymmetric organocatalysis. Rueping et al. independently expanded the scope of the asymmetric Brpnsted acid-catalyzed Mannich reaction of acetophenone [45]. 

An important feature of this reaction is that in contrast to most other catalytic asymmetric Mannich reactions, a-unbranched aldehydes are efficient electrophiles in the proline-catalyzed reaction. In addition, with hydroxy acetone as a donor, the corresponding syn-l, 2-aminoalcohols are furnished with high chemo-, regio-, diastereo-, and enantioselectivities. The produced ketones 14 can be further converted to 4-substituted 2-oxazolidinones 17 and /i-aminoalcohol derivatives 18 in a straightforward manner via Baeyer-Villiger oxidation (Scheme 9.4) [5]. 

An asymmetric Mannich reaction was recently successfully achieved by means of different types of catalyst, metal- and organocatalysts [20, 21]. With the latter the reaction can be performed asymmetrically by use of L-proline and related compounds as chiral organocatalyst [22-35]. A key advantage of the proline-catalyzed route is that unmodified ketones are used as donors, which is synthetically highly attractive. In contrast, many other asymmetric catalytic methods require preformed enolate equivalents as nucleophile. 

The Mannich reaction using PMP-protected a-imino glyoxylate, 33, can also be conducted enantio- and diastereoselectively when using substituted acetone derivatives, as has been successfully shown by the Barbas group [26-28]. Several types of ketone are accepted as donors in the presence of 20 mol% of L-proline as catalyst [26]. This type of Mannich reaction provides keto-functionalized syn a-amino acid... 

In conclusion, this new organocatalytic direct asymmetric Mannich reaction is an efficient means of obtaining optically active //-amino carbonyl compounds. It is worthy of note that besides the enantioselective process, enantio- and diastereose-lective Mannich reactions can also be performed, which makes synthesis of products bearing one or two stereogenic centers possible. Depending on the type of acceptor or donor, a broad range of products with a completely different substitution pattern can be obtained. The range of these Mannich products comprises classic / -amino ketones and esters as well as carbonyl-functionalized a-amino acids, and -after reduction-y-amino alcohols. 

Trost and coworkers recently reported that these dinuclear zinc complexes catalyze Mannich reactions with unmodified aromatic hydroxy ketones as donors with excellent enantioselectivity [18]. Mannich-type reactions between an N-para-meth-oxyphenyl (PMP)-protected a-ethyl glyoxalate and hydroxyacetophenone in the presence of a catalytic amount of catalyst 5a afford the desired N-PMP protected amino acid derivative in 76 % yield with a dr of 7 1 and 95 % ee (Eq.5). 

The mechanism of proline-catalyzed Mannich reactions is depicted in Scheme 5. The ketone or aldehyde donor reacts with proline to give an enamine. Next, the preformed or in-situ-generated imine reacts with the enamine to give, after hydrolysis, the enantiomerically enriched Mannich adduct the catalytic cycle can then be repeated. 

Scheme 2.1 The enamine catalytic cycle. An enamine derived from an amine- or amino acid-catalyst can react with a variety of electrophiles. The aldehyde and ketone reactants that form enamines and act as nucleophiles are often described as donors . Aldehyde and imine reactants that serve as electrophiles are described as acceptors for aldol and Mannich reactions, respectively. Ketones also serve as acceptors for aldol reactions.

Benzene formed from photolysis of the 1 1 complex is a cage-escape product from 3(Jul-CHO+ /Ph ). Benzene formed from the photolysis of the 2 1 complex is an in-cage product from 3((Jul-CHO)2 /Ph ). The formation of 2 1 complexes of amino-substituted ketones and iodonium salts has been suggested to account for the high photosensitivity of polymeric Mannich bases with iodonium salts [102]. Formation of 2 1 donor iodonium cation complexes has been rationalized by consideration of the crystal structures of diphenyliodonium halides, which crystallize as dimers with square planar iodine atoms with two bridging halide counterions [102,108]. 

It is interesting to note that anri-selectivity of aldolization (with L-proline promotion) involving hydroxyacetone as the donor is switched in the Mannich reaction. Thus syn-2-hydroxy-3-arnino ketones are obtained as major products. 

As the intermediate enamine reacts faster with imines than aldehydes, a one-pot three component coupling of the donor ketone, aldehyde and amine is possible. List and coworkers have achieved high ees in this reaction utilising L-proline (7.66) and some aliphatic aldehydes and aromatic aldehydes such as (7.136) in combination with p-anisidene (7.137). This catalyst system is also effective for the coupling of a-hydroxyketones. Use of the tetrazole-substituted proline (7.80) allows the reaction to be performed in dichloromethane rather than DMSO and high ees in the Mannich reaction between aliphatic ketones and imines derived from ethyl glyoxalate have been obtained imder these reaction conditions. 

Chiral amines can react with so-called Mannich donors such as ketones or aldehydes. The resulting chiral enamines wiU then attack a Mannich acceptor, usually a prochiral aldimine, thereby introducing one or two chiral centers in the Mannich product. This usually is a P-aminoaldehyde or P-aminoketone, optionally substituted at the a-position. Inspired by their work on proline-catalyzed asymmetric aldol reactions [1], the List group envisioned that the related Mannich reactions might also be carried out with a catalytic amount of an enantiomerically pure chiral amine. This led in 2000 to the first direct catalytic asymmetric organocatalyzed Mannich reaction, catalyzed by L-proline (1, Scheme 5.1) [2],... 

The mechanism of the amino acid-catalyzed Mannich reactions is depicted in Scheme 4.14. Accordingly, the ketone or aldehyde donor reacts with the amino acid to give an enamine. Next, the preformed or in situ- generated imine reacts with the enamine to give after hydrolysis the enantiomerically enriched Mannich product, and the catalytic cycle can be repeated. It is important to bear in mind that N-Chz-, N- Boc-, or A-benzoyl-protected imines are water-sensitive. Thus, they can hydrolyze and thereby decrease the yield of the transformation. Moreover, in the case of cross-Mannich-type addition with aldehydes as nucleophiles the catalytic self-aldolization pathway can compete with the desired pathway and lead to nonlinear effects [63]. 

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