Nucleophile-electrophile bonding development

A completely different, important type of synthesis, which was developed more recently, takes advantage of the electrophilicity of nitrogen-containing 1,3-dipolar compounds rather than the nucleophilicity of amines or enamines. Such compounds add to multiple bonds, e.g. C—C, C C, C—O, in a [2 + 3 -cycioaddition to form five-membered heterocycles. 

Ferrocen-l,l -diylbismetallacycles are conceptually attractive for the development of bimetal-catalyzed processes for one particular reason the distance between the reactive centers in a coordinated electrophile and a coordinated nucleophile is self-adjustable for specific tasks, because the activation energy for Cp ligand rotation is very low. In 2008, Peters and Jautze reported the application of the bis-palladacycle complex 56a to the enantioselective conjugate addition of a-cyanoacetates to enones (Fig. 31) [74—76] based on the idea that a soft bimetallic complex capable of simultaneously activating both Michael donor and acceptor would not only lead to superior catalytic activity, but also to an enhanced level of stereocontrol due to a highly organized transition state [77]. An a-cyanoacetate should be activated by enolization promoted by coordination of the nitrile moiety to one Pd(II)-center, while the enone should be activated as an electrophile by coordination of the olefinic double bond to the carbophilic Lewis acid [78],... 

Allene is a versatile functionality because it is useful as either a nucleophile or an electrophile and also as a substrate for cycloaddition reactions. This multi-reactivity makes an allene an excellent candidate for a synthetic manipulations. In addition to these abilities, the orthogonality of 1,3-substitution on the cumulated double bonds of allenes enables the molecule to exist in two enantiomeric configurations and reactions using either antipode can result in the transfer of chirality to the respective products. Therefore, the development of synthetic methodology for chiral allenes is one of the most valuable subjects for the synthetic organic chemist. This chapter serves as an introduction to recent progress in the enantioselective syntheses of allenes. Several of the earlier examples are presented in excellent previous reviews [ ] ... 

Similar schemes can be developed easily for analogous reactions of acceptor-substituted polyenes. For example, a triene with an acceptor group in 1-position can form six regioi-someric products of Michael addition and electrophilic capture, and each of these exists as E/Z stereoisomers, diastereomers and/or enantiomers. Thus, reactions of this type are only useful if both the regio- and stereoselectivity can be controlled fortunately, only one isomeric Michael adduct is formed in many cases. This is true in particular for polyunsaturated Michael acceptors which bear at least one triple bond besides one or more double bonds. An additional feature of the latter substrate type is that nucleophilic additions can... 

Enamine nucleophiles react readily with soft conjugated electrophiles, such as a, 3-unsaturated carbonyl, nitro, and sulfonyl compounds [20-22], Both aldehydes and ketones can be used as donors (Schemes 27 and 28). These Michael-type reactions are highly useful for the construction of carbon skeletons and often the yields are very high. The problem, however, is the enantioselectivity of the process. Unlike the aldol and Mannich reactions, where even simple proline catalyst can effectively direct the addition to the C = O or C = N bond by its carboxylic acid moiety, in conjugate additions the charge develops further away from the catalyst (Scheme 26) ... 

This methodology is also an important and potentially valuable method for C—N bond formation using the amination of carbon nucleophiles with electrophilic nitrogen transfer reagents (Scheme 1) Amination of ordinary carbanions and a-carbanion derived from carbonyl compounds and nitriles provides an important method for the synthesis of amines and a-amino carbonyl compounds and nitriles", respectively. For this purpose, a number of electrophilic amination reagents, which are synthetic equivalents of the R2N+ synthon, have been developed and the synthetic potential of electrophilic amination of carbon nucleophiles has been studied in detail . ... 

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