Nonstabilized precursors, azomethine ylide

The last variation of the oxazoline route is a cycloreversion of 5-oxazoli-dinones or oxazolidines. Thermal decarboxylation of 5-oxazolidinones is a convenient method of generating nonstabilized azomethine ylides, since the heterocyclic precursors are accessible, and sometimes isolable, by simply heating a-amino acids and carbonyl compounds. This has been discussed in Section II,E. 

Achiwa reported a short synthesis of pyrrolizidine derivatives by the cycloadditions using a nonstabilized azomethine ylide 23 (m = 1) (82CPB3167). When the trimer of 1-pyrroline is treated with a silylmethyl triflate, N-alkylation of the 1-pyrroline takes place. Then the resulting iminium salt is desilylated with fluoride ion in the presence of ethyl acrylate to give ethyl pyrrolizidine-l-carboxylate 295 as a mixture of stereoisomers (28%). After the epimerization of 295 with LDA, the ester moiety is reduced with lithium aluminum hydride in ether to provide (+ )-trachelanthamidine (296). A double bond can be introduced into 295 by a sequence of phenyl-selenylation at the 1-position, oxidation with hydrogen peroxide, and elimination of the selenyl moiety. The 1,2-dehydropyrrolizidine-l-carboxylate 297 is an excellent precursor of (+ )-supinidine (298) and (+)-isoretronecanol (299). Though in poor yield, 297 is directly available by the reaction of 23 with ethyl 3-chloropropenoate. 

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