Nitriles cycloaddition reactions, diastereoselective

Cycloaddition of 2-alkoxy-l,3-butadienes, H2C=C(OAlk)CH=CH2, and nitrile oxides to give isoxazolines 51 proceeds with the participation of only one of the conjugated C=C bonds. With benzonitrile oxide, only the vinyl group in alkoxydienes participates in cycloaddition reactions while in the case of phenyl-glyoxylonitrile oxide both double bonds react (222). Nitrile oxides RC=NO react with iron complexed trienes 52. The reaction proceeds with good yield and diastereoselectivity ( 90/10) to give isoxazolines 53 (223). 

A strategy based on the diastereoselective dipolar cycloaddition reaction of nitrile oxides and allylic alcoholates, has been applied to the synthesis of bis-(isoxazolines) that are precursors to polyketide fragments. These intermediates can be elaborated into protected polyols, for example, 439, by sequential chemos-elective reductive opening of each isoxazoline or, alternatively, by simultaneously, providing access to all stereoisomers of this carbon skeleton (479). 

N. P. Peet, E. W. Huber, and R. A. Farr, Diastereoselectivity in the intramolecular nitrone, oxime, and nitrile oxide cycloaddition reactions, Tetrahedron 47 7537 (1991). 

Curran and coworkers67 have reported high diastereoselectivity (9 1) in the cycloaddition reactions of Oppolzer s chiral sultam68 (55) with nitrile oxides (equation 5). The major diastereomer (56) results from top-side attack of the incoming nitrile oxide and it has been suggested that the a-oxygen atom of the sultam provides a steric or electronic encumbrance to bottom-side attack. These results point the way to... 

Ever since Huisgen s seminal studies [4, 15, 25], a wide variety of 1,3-dipoles have found widespread synthetic use [22, 23, 28-34]. Selected examples of common dipoles are depicted in Figure 18.2. In contrast to the developments seen with other transformations, the evolution of dipolar cycloaddition reactions has largely occurred in its strategic applications in complex molecule synthesis. The discussion that follows therefore focuses on classic applications of dipolar cycloadditions in natural products total syntheses. The diastereoselective dipolar cycloadditions of allylic and homoallylic alcohols with nitrile oxides presented at the end of this section constitute a general synthetic method to gain access to chiral polyketide fragments. 

The examples from the preceding discussion catalog the development of the field, which has largely led to increasing sophistication in the implementation of dipolar cycloadditions in target-specific molecule synthesis. The development of diastereoselective substrate-controlled methods as a general synthesis of chiral building blocks by use of nitrile-oxide dipolar cycloaddition reactions has only recently been heralded by the work of Kanemasa and Carreira. 

Carreira has demonstrated that the hydroxy-directed nitrile oxide cycloaddition reaction is a general synthetic approach to polyketide fragments, with the intermediate isoxazolines functioning as latent, masked aldol adducts [65], The 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions have been shown to tolerate a large variety of alcohol substrates, including aliphatic allylic, homoallylic, and cyclic allylic alcohols [65-67], A demonstration of the versatility of the approach was reported in the synthesis of erythronolide A (58, Scheme 18.12) [67], This synthetic effort took advantage of two sequential hydroxy-directed nitrile oxide cycloadditions to provide fragments 55 and 57, both of which were obtained with excellent yields and diastereoselectivity (dr2 98 2). 

Regio- and diastereoselectivity in 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions of nitrile oxides to 4-substituted cyclopent-2-enones was studied (238, 239). The reactions are always regioselective, while the diastereofacial selectivity depends on the nature of the substituents. Thus, 4-hydroxy-4-methylcyclopent-2-enone (75) gives preferably adducts 76a, the 76a 76b ratio warying from 65 35 to 85 15 (Scheme 1.22). 

Dipolar addition is closely related to the Diels-Alder reaction, but allows the formation of five-membered adducts, including cyclopentane derivatives. Like Diels-Alder reactions, 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition involves [4+2] concerted reaction of a 1,3-dipolar species (the An component and a dipolar In component). Very often, condensation of chiral acrylates with nitrile oxides or nitrones gives only modest diastereoselectivity.82 1,3-Dipolar cycloaddition between nitrones and alkenes is most useful and convenient for the preparation of iso-xazolidine derivatives, which can then be readily converted to 1,3-amino alcohol equivalents under mild conditions.83 The low selectivity of the 1,3-dipolar reaction can be overcome to some extent by introducing a chiral auxiliary to the substrate. As shown in Scheme 5-51, the reaction of 169 with acryloyl chloride connects the chiral sultam to the acrylic acid substrate, and subsequent cycloaddition yields product 170 with a diastereoselectivity of 90 10.84... 

The diastereoselective cycloaddition of 2-phenyl-4-dimethylamino-l-thia-3-azabuta-l,3-diene with a choice of dienophiles and in the presence of a Lewis acid provides a convenient route to 5,6-dihydro-4//-l,3-thiazines <2002TL6067, 2004T1827>. The more stable /ra r-adducts are produced exclusively. The approach using (4A)-3-acryloyl-4-benzyloxazolidin-2-one 198 provides access to the chiral 5,6-dihydro-4//-l,3-thiazine 199 <2004T1827>. The exceptional level of selectivity is only achieved when magnesium bromide is used. The chiral auxiliary was removed by reaction with lithium benzoxide to give the benzyl ester 200, and reaction with catalytic amount of samarium triflate and methanol provides the methyl ester 201 (Scheme 21). 2-Substituted-5,6-dihydro-l,3-thiazines are conveniently synthesized from nitriles or thiocyanates and 4-mercapto-2-methylbutan-2-ol to produce... 

The convergence of the nitronate and nitrile oxide cycloadditions has allowed for the direct comparisons of yields and stereoselectivities of the two processes. For intramolecular reactions, the nitronate dipole typically required longer reaction times and/or elevated temperatures (22,98,135), however, the nitronate cycloaddition shows considerably higher diastereoselectivity (Table 2.42). Interestingly, the diastereoselectivity is dependent on the placement of a substituent on the tether. In the case of the silyl nitronate derived from 172, the diastereoselectivity is controlled by the substituent at C(l), while cyclization of the analogous nitrile oxide is governed by the substituent at C(l ) (Scheme 2.10) (124). 

Extensive work has been done to determine and understand the factors controlling diastereoselectivity in the cycloaddition of nitrile oxides to alkenes but very little is known about nitrile ylides in this regard. Work on their reactions with alkenes that are geminally disubstituted with electron-withdrawing groups (e.g., 187) has illustrated some of the difficulties in such studies. When the imidoyl chloride-base route was used to generate the nitrile ylides it was found that the products 188 epimerized under the reaction conditions. When the azirine route was used, the reaction was complicated by the photochemical isomerization of the dipolarophiles (96,97). Thus, in both cases, it proved impossible to determine the kinetic product ratio. 

Extensive studies on diastereoselectivity in the reactions of 1,3-dipoles such as nitrile oxides and nitrones have been carried out over the last 10 years. In contrast, very little work was done on the reactions of nitrile imines with chiral alkenes until the end of the 1990s and very few enantiomerically pure nitrile imines were generated. The greatest degree of selectivity so far has been achieved in cycloadditions to the Fischer chromium carbene complexes (201) to give, initially, the pyrazohne complexes 202 and 203 (111,112). These products proved to be rather unstable and were oxidized in situ with pyridine N-oxide to give predominantly the (4R,5S) product 204 in moderate yield (35-73%). 

Yamamoto and co-workers (135,135-137) recently reported a new method for stereocontrol in nitrile oxide cycloadditions. Metal ion-catalyzed diastereoselective asymmetric reactions using chiral electron-deficient dipolarophiles have remained unreported except for reactions using a-methylene-p-hydroxy esters, which were described in Section 11.2.2.6. Although synthetically very useful and, hence, attractive as an entry to the asymmetric synthesis of 2-isoxazohnes, the application of Lewis acid catalysis to nitrile oxide cycloadditions with 4-chiral 3-(2-aIkenoyl)-2-oxazolidinones has been unsuccessful, even when > 1 equiv of Lewis acids are employed. However, as shown in the Scheme 11.37, diastereoselectivities in favor of the ffc-cycloadducts are improved (diastereomer ratio = 96 4) when the reactions are performed in dichloromethane in the presence of 1 equiv of MgBr2 at higher than normal concentrations (0.25 vs 0.083 M) (140). The Lewis acid... 

Only a few reports have described the application of optically active nitrile oxides in 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions (65-70). A general trend for these reactions is that moderate-to-poor diastereoselectivities are obtained when it is attempted to control the stereoselectivity using a chiral nitrile oxide. In one of the few recent examples, the chiral nitrile oxide 43, derived from Al-formylnorephenedrine and 3-methylnitrobutene, was subjected to reaction with diethyl fumerate (Scheme 12.16) (69). Compound 44 was obtained as the major product of this reaction as a 75 25 mixture with its diastereomer. 

For intramolecular 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions, the application of nitrones and nitrile oxides is by far most common. However, in increasing frequency, cases intramolecular reactions of azomethine ylides (76,77,242-246) and azides (247-259) are being reported. The previously described intermolecular approach developed by Harwood and co-workers (76,77) has been extended to also include intramolecular reactions. The reaction of the chiral template 147 with the alkenyl aldehyde 148 led to the formation of the azomethine ylide 149, which underwent an intramolecular 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition to furnish 150 (Scheme 12.49). The reaction was found to proceed with high diastereoselectivity, as only one diaster-eomer of 150 was formed. By a reduction of 150, the proline derivative 151 was obtained. 

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