Nitriles, asymmetric conjugate addition

The asymmetric conjugate addition of activated methylenes is one of the most studied organocatalytic reactions. A wide variety of Michael acceptors such as enals, enones, a,P-unsaturated nitriles, nitroolefins, a,(i-unsaturated imides, and vinyl sulfones have been successfully employed as elechophiles with high degree of stereocontrol. 

The stereoselectivity of conjugate addition and cyclopropanation of the chiral nitrovinyldioxolanes 17 can be effectively controlled <96TL6307>, and good selectivity is observed in the ultrasound-promoted cycloaddition of nitrile oxides to alkenyldioxolanes 18 <95MI877,95JOC7701 >. Asymmetric Simmons-Smith cyclopropanation of 19 proceeds with... 

Recently, the transition-metal-catalyzed addition of active methylene C-H bonds to electron-deficient olefins having a carbonyl, a nitrile, or a sulfonyl group has been extensively studied by several research groups. In particular, the asymmetric version of this type of catalytic reaction provides a new route to the enantioselective construction of quaternary carbon centers [88]. Another topic of recent interest is the catalytic addition of active methylene C-H bonds to acetylenes, allenes, conjugate ene-ynes, and nitrile C-N triple bonds. In this section, the ruthenium-catalyzed addition of C-H bonds in active methylene compounds to carbonyl groups and C-C multiple bonds is described. 

In addition to being an efficient chiral controller in a number of stereoselective transformations of chiral acrylates, (i.e. the Diels-Alder reaction, the conjugate reduction, the asymmetric dihydroxylation, and the nitrile oxide cycloaddition ) the bomanesultam (11) has been shown to be an exceptionally efficient chiral auxiliary for stereoselective aldol condensations (eqs eq 3 and eq 4). Depending upon the reaction conditions, A -propionylsultam can produce either the syn or anti aldol product with an excellent diastereoselectivity, Furthermore, good diastereoselectiv-ities are also observed for the corresponding acetate aldol reaction (eq 5), ... 

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