Methylenic protons, electrophilic

A detailed discussion of the different acidities of the diastereotopic a-methylene protons in sulphoxides, as well as of the stereochemistry of reactions of sulphoxide a-carbanions with electrophilic reagents is beyond the scope of this chapter. A recent review by Wolfe pertinent to these problems is available392. 

Thus, the role of zinc in the dehydrogenation reaction is to promote deprotonation of the alcohol, thereby enhancing hydride transfer from the zinc alkoxide intermediate. Conversely, in the reverse hydrogenation reaction, its role is to enhance the electrophilicity of the carbonyl carbon atom. Alcohol dehydrogenases are exquisitely stereo specific and by binding their substrate via a three-point attachment site (Figure 12.7), they can distinguish between the two-methylene protons of the prochiral ethanol molecule. 

The overall changes in the chemical shift of the methine protons can be directly correlated with the amounts of ions if ionization is significant (>1%). However, even minute amounts of intermediate cations can be detected in some systems by dynamic NMR. Because ionization leads to the formation of a planar carbenium ion, the chirality at the carbon atom is lost. In the particular case of the isobutyl vinyl ether derivatives, the isobutoxy group has a built-in probe (CH2-CHMe2) separated from the chiral center by oxygen atom. The methylene protons on the ether group are magnetically nonequivalent due to the presence of four different substituents at the electrophilic carbon center. They become equivalent only... 

The methylene carbon atom in a condensed 4-thiazolidinone flanked by a sulfur atom and a carbonyl group possesses enhanced nucleophilic activity and attacks an electrophilic center with ease. If the structure permits, the reaction product loses a molecule of water, and an unsaturated derivative is formed. The reaction is carried out in the presence of a base which abstracts a methylene proton. It is the anion thus formed that attacks the electrophilic center. Generally, the anion condenses with aromatic aldehydes, nitroso compounds, aryidiazonium salts, and ethyl orthoformate, as well as undergoing Vilsmeier-Haack and Mannich reactions. 

Electrophilic substitution of methylenic protons in sulfides and sulfoxides. Alkaloidal / -sulfoxides could be chlorinated in -position by means of sulfurylchloride in the presence of pyridine. 

The tetrasubstituted isomer of the morpholine enamine of 2-methyl-cyclohexanone (20) because cf the diminished electronic overlap should be expected to exhibit lower degree of enamine-type reactivity toward electrophilic agents than the trisubstituted isomer. This was demonstrated to be the case when the treatment of the enamine with dilute acetic acid at room temperature resulted in the completely selective hydrolysis of the trisubstituted isomer within 5 min. The tetrasubstituted isomer was rather slow to react and was 96% hydrolyzed after 22 hr (77). The slowness might also be due to the intermediacy of quaternary iminium ion 23, which suffers from a severe. 4< strain 7,7a) between the equatorial C-2 methyl group and the methylene group adjacent to the nitrogen atom, 23 being formed by the stereoelectronically controlled axial protonation of 20. 

Such methyenepyrans afford still another possibility for obtaining new pyrylium salts, namely, electrophilic alkylation or acylation at the exocyclio methylene carbon atom. Thus, 2,6-diphenyl-4-iso-propylidene-4/I-pyran is converted into 2,6-diphenyl-4-i-butyl-pyrylium iodide on refluxing with methyl iodide (see Scheme 3). Unlike the protonation of methylenepyrans, this reaction is no longer... 

Novolacs are prepared with an excess of phenol over formaldehyde under acidic conditions (Fig. 7.6). A methylene glycol is protonated by an acid from the reaction medium, which then releases water to form a hydroxymethylene cation (step 1 in Fig. 7.6). This ion hydroxyalkylates a phenol via electrophilic aromatic substitution. The rate-determining step of the sequence occurs in step 2 where a pair of electrons from the phenol ring attacks the electrophile forming a car-bocation intermediate. The methylol group of the hydroxymethylated phenol is unstable in the presence of acid and loses water readily to form a benzylic carbo-nium ion (step 3). This ion then reacts with another phenol to form a methylene bridge in another electrophilic aromatic substitution. This major process repeats until the formaldehyde is exhausted. 

As mentioned earlier, metal complexation not only allows isolation of the QM derivatives but can also dramatically modify their reactivity patterns.29o-QMs are important intermediates in numerous synthetic and biological processes, in which the exocyclic carbon exhibits an electrophilic character.30-33 In contrast, a metal-stabilized o-QM can react as a base or nucleophile (Scheme 3.16).29 For instance, protonation of the Ir-T 4-QM complex 24 by one equivalent of HBF4 gave the initial oxo-dienyl complex 25, while in the presence of an excess of acid the dicationic complex 26 was obtained. Reaction of 24 with I2 led to the formation of new oxo-dienyl complex 27, instead of the expected oxidation of the complex and elimination of the free o-QM. Such reactivity of the exocyclic methylene group can be compared with the reactivity of electron-rich enol acetates or enol silyl ethers, which undergo electrophilic iodination.34... 

Amouri and coworkers also demonstrated that the nucleophilic reactivity of the exocyclic carbon of Cp Ir(T 4-QM) complex 24 could be utilized to form carbon -carbon bonds with electron-poor alkenes and alkynes serving as electrophiles or cycloaddition partners (Scheme 3.17).29 For example, when complex 24 was treated with the electron-poor methyl propynoate, a new o-quinone methide complex 28 was formed. The authors suggest that the reaction could be initiated by nucleophilic attack of the terminal carbon of the exocyclic methylene group on the terminal carbon of the alkyne, generating a zwitterionic oxo-dienyl intermediate, followed by proton transfer... 

Plant sterols such as stigmasterol typically contain an extra ethyl group when compared with cholesterol. Now this is not introduced by an electrophilic ethylation process instead, two successive electrophilic methylation processes occur, both involving SAM as methyl donor. Indeed, it is a methylene derivative like that just seen in ergosterol formation that can act as the alkene for further electrophilic alkylation. After proton loss, the product has a side-chain with an ethylidene substituent the side-chains of the common plant sterols stigmasterol and sitosterol are then related by repeats of the reduction and dehydrogenation processes already seen in ergosterol formation. 

The linear tetrapyrrole has methylene bridges between the pyrrole rings we start from porphobilinogen that has either -H or -CH2NH2 as the ring substituents at these positions. Since the nitrogens are lost, we should consider an elimination, and this is assisted by the pyrrole nitrogen. We can consider protonation of the amine to facilitate the elimination. The product is an electrophilic methylidene pyrrolium cation. 

As a further illustration of the reactivity of the 3 position toward electrophiles, the methoxyindole (25-1) readily undergoes Mannich reaction with formaldehyde and dimethylamine to afford the aminomethylated derivative (25-2). Treatment of that intermediate with potassium cyanide leads to the displacement of dimethylamine and the formation of the nitrile (25-3), possibly by an elimination-addition sequence involving a 3-exomethylene-indolenine intermediate. The protons on the methylene group adjacent to the nitrile are quite acidic and readily removed. Reaction of (25-3) with methyl carbonate in the presence of sodium methoxide gives the carbo-methoxylated derivative (25-4). Catalytic hydrogenation leads to reduction of the nitrile to a primary amine. There is thus obtained the antihypertensive agent indorenate (25-5) [26]. 

A similar type of acid-catalyzed condensation of aldehydes with 4-methylene-2-oxetanone (diketene), giving 4-oxo-6-methyl-l,3-dioxins, has been patented (73GEP2149650). However, other work has established that <5-hydroxy-/3-keto acids or unsaturated keto acids are formed as the principal products (equation 24) (78CPB3877, 78CL409). The latter reaction probably involves electrophilic attack of the protonated aldehyde on the nucleophilic exocyclic methylene carbon atom of the diketone. A closely related reaction of acetals with diketene, catalyzed by titanium tetrachloride, gives the corresponding <5-alkoxy-/3-keto esters (74CL1189). 

Electrophiles other than protons were indeed shown to react with lignin model compounds at the 2- and 6-positions in acidic media Kratzl and Wagner investigated the reaction of paraphenolic benzyl alcohols in alkaline and acidic solutions (10). When 4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzyl alcohol 4 was reacted with the 4-alkyl substituted phenol 5 under alkaline conditions, the expected ortho linked product (6) was isolated. However, under acidic conditions the methylene linkage formed meta to the phenolic hydroxy group (Fig. 2). 

In acidic media, loss of a proton can give traces of methylene forms of type (609). Alternatively, a Lewis acid catalyst such as acetic anhydride may be used which involves formation of complexes of type (618) from which proton loss is facile. Such methylene bases can also react with electrophiles, gradually causing complete conversion of the heterocycle. 

Electrophilic attack on //-vinylidene complexes can occur either on the methylene carbon, or at the metal-metal bond. With the manganese complexes (45, R = H or Me), protonation affords the//-carbyne complexes (46), which in the case of R = Me, exist in the stereoisomeric forms shown (57). Interconversion of the two forms is slow at room temperature ... 

Phenanthridine in methanol solution is unaffected by ozone, but in methylene dichloride quinoline-3,4-dicarboxylic acid (2%) and phenanthridone (23%) are formed a large part of the remaining phenanthridine can be recovered unchanged.335 The reaction thus proceeds much less readily than in the case of acridine. The mechanism by which the lactam is formed is not known with certainty, but an intermediate such as 233 has been proposed.335 However, an initial electrophilic attack producing 234, followed by loss of oxygen and a proton shift, seems equally likely. 

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