Natural products homoenolate

NHC-catalysed homoenolate generation has been applied by Bode and Struble in the formal synthesis of the natural product salinosporamide A [77], The key step in the synthesis is a late-stage NHC-catalysed intramolecular lactonisation step of intermediate 186. When this reaction was attempted with an achiral triazolium-derived NHC, a 4 1 diastereomeric ratio of products was obtained in preference for the undesired product 189. In order to circumvent this, chiral triazolium salt 187 was employed, giving an approximately 1 1 mixture of desired undesired diastereoisomers (Scheme 12.41). 

Scheme 12.41 Homoenolate methodology in natural product synthesis...

Apart form the aforementioned highly enantioselective hetero-Diels-Alder reactions, that proceed with very low catalyst loadings, the catalytically accessible enolates have also been used for related intramolecular Michael reactions (Philips et al. 2007) and for the desym-metrization of 1,3-diketones yielding cyclopentenes via an intramolecular aldol reaction (Wadamoto et al. 2007). The formation of cyclopentenes, however, presents a special case, so—depending on the stereochemical nature of the enone substrates (s-cis or s-trans) and the stereochemistry of the final products—two different mechanisms are discussed in the literature. Whereas /ran.v-cycl open (cries are proposed to be available upon conjugate addition of a homoenolate to chalcones,... 

In this style too, asymmetry has become a major concern.42 An asymmetric version 147 of this homoenolate was made from natural nor-ephedrine and could be alkylated stereoselectively using lithium tetramethylpiperidide (LiTMP) as base. The product could be hydrolysed to the bicyclic amide43 149. 

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