Nitrones electrophilic addition

Various side-reactions may complicate the course of the Nef reaction. Because of the delocalized negative charge, the nitronate anion 2 can react at various positions with an electrophile addition of a proton at the a-carbon reconstitutes the starting nitro alkane. 1. The nitrite anion can act as leaving group, thus leading to elimination products. 

Miscellaneous Reactions. Isobutene, as the carbenium ion source for Ritter reactions, produces Al-r-butyl amides (eq 34). Isobutene undergoes highly regioselective cycloaddition with isocyanate to form azetidinones and with nitrones to yield isox-azolidines (eqs 35 and 36). Allyl thioethers are formed by the electrophilic addition of Benzenesulfenyl Chloride to isobutene (eq 37). Alkenylphosphonous dichlorides and alkenylthionophosphonic dichlorides are also formed by addition of PCI5 and P2S5 (eqs 38 and 39). ... 

In order to overcome the poor electrophilicity ofimines, nitrones arc used as partners for reaction with iron acyl enolates 428. Benzaldehyde phenylnitrone (5) reacts rapidly with the aluminum-based enolate at —78 C to give a crude /J-hydroxyamino iron acyl 6 (68% yield). Treatment with aqueous titanium trichloride in tetrahydrofuran at room temperature causes a selective reduction of the N—O bond and affords the /1-amino iron acyl 7 with inverse configuration compared to the addition ofimines (99% yield d.r. 11 23). 

Lithiated epoxides have been found to react with a number of different activated electrophiles. A new study examines the reactivity of lithiated epoxides with nitrones to prepare 3,y-epoxyhydroxylamines, 46, and oxazetidine, 47 <06OL3923>. Upon deprotonation of styrene oxide, the lithiated reactant was then added to nitrone 45 to form the P,y-epoxyhydroxylamine 46 in good yield as a single diastereomer. A number of additional nitrones were examined as well and all provided similar yields of the 3,y-epoxyhydroxylamines. Treatment of 46 with additional base provided the 1,2-oxazetidine ring system 47 in excellent yield. Interestingly, none of the five-membered isoxazolidines from the 5-endo-tet cyclization were formed in this cyclization. 

Reactions of Nucleophilic Addition The high tendency of nitrones toward nucleophilic attack at the a-carbon atom is determined by both, the electrophilic character of the nitrone group per se (Fig. 2.10, stmcture C) and by... 

O - P h e n y 1 - /V - e r y t h r o s y 1 nitrone (336), as a Ci,C i-bis-electrophile, when subjected to the double addition of Grignard reagents (in a domino style), leads to acyclic hydroxylamine (338) via the formation of open-chain nitrone (337 ). The reaction proceeds at 0°C with variable diastereoselectivity ranging from medium to good, depending on the organometalic reagent used (Scheme 2.140) (564). 

Structure B is of most interest. It is responsible for the activity of nitronates as 1,3-dipoles in [3+ 2]-cycloaddition reactions. This is the most important aspect of the reactivity of nitronates determining the significance of these compounds in organic synthesis (see e.g., Ref. 267). In addition, this structure suggests that nitronates can show both, O -nucleophilic properties, that is, react at the oxygen atom with electrophiles, and a-C-electrophilic properties, that is, add nucleophiles at the a-carbon atom. 

The resonance structures of nitronates are most similar to those of nitrones, but nitronates have the additional structure D. Strange as it may seem, the contribution of this structure more likely slightly diminishes a-C-electrophilic activity of nitronates, move than is favorable for the appearance of the nucleophilic properties. In any case, no transformations, in which nitronates unambiguously act as C-nucleophiles, have been rigorously established. 

The addition of electrophiles at the oxygen atom could activate nitronates as C-electrophiles, analogously to that in the case of the carbonyl group (297). However, this aspect of reactivity of nitronates has remained unknown until very recent times. 

An efficient preparation of hexahydro-isoxazolo[2,3- ]pyridin-2-ones relies on the anionic addition of nucleophiles at the electrophilic carbon of the nitrone followed by cyclization of the resulting Ar-oxide. As shown by results collected in Scheme 31, various nucleophiles can be engaged in the reaction and include enolates 95 <20020L3119> or 98 <2000BML1811>, silyl acetals 101 <2003TL2817>, or ynolates 103 <20020L3119> (Scheme 31). 

One possible solution of this problem is to differentiate a radical first as electrophilic or nucleophilic with respect to its partner, depending upon its tendency to gain or lose electron. Then the relevant atomic Fukui function (/+ or / ) or softness f.v+ or s ) should be used. Using this approach, regiochemistry of radical addition to heteratom C=X double bond (aldehydes, nitrones, imines, etc.) and heteronuclear ring compounds (such as uracil, thymine, furan, pyridine, etc.) could be explained [34], A more rigorous approach will be to define the Fukui function for radical attack in such a way that it takes care of the inherent nature of a radical and thus differentiates one radical from the other. 

Since then, optically active a-aminophosphonates have been obtained by a variety of methods including resolution, asymmetric phosphite additions to imine double bonds and sugar-based nitrones, condensation of optically active ureas with phosphites and aldehydes, catalytic asymmetric hydrogenation, and 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions. These approaches have been discussed in a comprehensive review by Dhawan and Redmore.9 More recent protocols involve electrophilic amination of homochiral dioxane acetals,10 alkylation of homochiral imines derived from pinanone11 and ketopinic acid,12 and alkylation of homochiral, bicyclic phosphonamides.13... 

The electrophile-induced cyclization of heteroatom nucleophiles onto an adjacent alkene function is a common strategy in heterocycle synthesis (319,320) and has been extended to electrophile-assisted nitrone generation (Scheme 1.62). The formation of a cyclic cationic species 296 from the reaction of an electrophile (E ), such as a halogen, with an alkene is well known and can be used to N-alkylate an oxime and so generate a nitrone (297). Thus, electrophile-promoted oxime-alkene reactions can occur at room temperature rather than under thermolysis as is common with 1,3-APT reactions. The induction of the addition of oximes to alkenes has been performed in an intramolecular sense with A-bromosuccinimide (NBS) (321-323), A-iodosuccinimide (NIS) (321), h (321,322), and ICl (321) for subsequent cycloaddition reactions of the cyclic nitrones with alkenes and alkynes. 

Reaction at the C atom of nitronate salts is known with a variety of electrophiles, such as aldehydes (Henry reaction) and epoxides (191-193). Thus the incorporation of the nitro moiety and the cyclization event can be combined into a tandem sequence. Addition of the potassium salt of dinitromethane to an a-haloaldehyde affords a nitro aldol product that can then undergo intramolecular O-alkylation to provide the cyclic nitronate (208, Eq. 2.17) (59). This process also has been expanded to a-nitroacetates and unfunctionalized nitroalkanes. Other electrophiles include functionalized a-haloaldehydes (194,195), a-epoxyaldehydes (196), a-haloenones (60), and a-halosulfonium salts (197), (Chart 2.2). In the case of unsubstituted enones, it is reported that the intermediate nitronate salt can undergo formation of a hemiacetal, which can be acetylated in moderate yield (198). 

In an analogous manner, nitroalkenes can be utilized as the electrophile in a tandem coupling-cyclization process (Eq. 2.18). Addition of a stabilized sulfonium ylide such as 209, to a variety of nitroalkenes provides an intermediate nitronic acid, which upon displacement of dimethyl sulfide provides a mixture of the corresponding nitrocyclopropane (XL) and cyclic nitronate (XLI). The ratio of products is highly dependent on the structure of the nitroalkene. For example, without a substituent on the a-position of the nitroalkene (R = H), only the... 

The molecular mechanisms for the nucleophilic addition of lithium enolates and silyl ketene acetals to nitrones in the absence and in the presence of a Lewis acid catalyst to give isoxazolidin-5-ones or hydroxylamines have been investigated by DFT methods at the B3LYP/6-31G level.13 An analysis of the global electrophilicity of the reagents accounts for the strong electrophile activation of the Lewis acid-coordinated nitrone, (g) and the analysis of the local indices leads to an explanation for the experimentally observed regioselectivity. 

The conversion of (57) into (60) or (61) starts with the halogen/nitro 8, 2 substitution from (57) to (58) promoted by IRA-402 nitrite, followed by in situ generation of the nitronate (59) under Amberlyst A-21 catalysis, then nucleophilic addition of (59) to the electrophilic substrates. 

The Cl sequence introduced in Chap. 2.2 represents a mild and catalytic access to chalcones. l,3-Diarylprop-2-en-l-ones are bifunctional electrophilic Michael-systems and per se important three-carbon building blocks in synthetic heterocyclic chemistry [33]. Among many classes of five-, six-, and seven-membered heterocycles the underlying principle is always the Michael-addition-cyclocondensation sequence of chalcones and bifunctional nucleophiles [176-181, 222-229]. Furthermore, chalcones can also participate in cycloadditions, as dienophiles and dipolar-ophiles and furnish in the case of 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions with diazo alkanes pyrazolines [230, 231], with azides triazolines [232], with nitrones isoxazolidines [233] with azomethinylides pyrrolidines [234], or with nitriloxides isoxazolines [235]. Therefore, the mild, catalytic access to chalcones by the CIR excellently sets the stage for the development of consecutive MCRs based upon cyclocondensation strategies. 

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