Nucleophilic addition, lithium enolates

Nucleophiles like lithium enolates and organocuprates can be added to the terminus of the allyl ligand of cationic cyclic allyl(carbene)iron complexes to give 4-substituted tricarbonyl[l,(3 )-diene]iron complexes. Subsequent to the nucleophilic addition, a ferra-Claisen rearrangement is supposed to be involved in the reaction mechanism. The free dienes can be released by treatment with ceric ammonium nitrate or alkaline hydrogen peroxide (Scheme 4-65). ... 

A partial explanation of the above findings must lie in the known ease of addition of nucleophilic reagents to the conjugated double bond of pregn-16-en-20-ones. The amide ion that is a by-product of the reduction probably adds to a portion of the unreduced pregn-16-en-20-one giving the lithium enolate of amino ketone (74). This enolate may well be relatively stable at — 33° and would be protonated to the free 16-amino-20-one during work-up... 

Posner recently reported a very simple and fast way to activate epoxides towards nucleophilic opening by ketone lithium enolate anions by use of BF3 Et20 (1 equiv.) [73]. The application of this procedure to the nucleophilic opening of propene oxide with the lithium enolate of 2-cycloheptanone, obtained by the conjugate addition of trimethylstannyllithium to 2-cycloheptenone, afforded the stan-... 

Bromo-2-(t-butylsulfonyl)propene (79) reacts with nucleophiles such as lithium benzenethiolate, lithium enolates and Grignard reagents to give a, /(-unsaturated sulfones, which undergo nucleophilic addition of lithium cuprates (equation 68)58. 

Aldol Reactions of Lithium Enolates. Entries 1 to 4 in Scheme 2.1 represent cases in which the nucleophilic component is a lithium enolate formed by kinetically controlled deprotonation, as discussed in Section 1.1. Lithium enolates are usually highly reactive toward aldehydes and addition occurs rapidly when the aldehyde is added, even at low temperature. The low temperature ensures kinetic control and enhances selectivity. When the addition step is complete, the reaction is stopped by neutralization and the product is isolated. 

Zirconium enolates can also prepared by reaction of lithium enolates with (Cp)2ZrCl2, and they act as nucleophiles in aldol addition reactions.34... 

In spite of the apparent difference between conjugate addition and carbocupra-tion reactions (Sect. 10.3.2), the similarities between the key organometallic features of the two reactions are now evident. In both reactions, inner sphere electron-transfer converts the stable C-Cu bond into an unstable C-Cu bond, and the cluster-opening generates a nucleophilic, tetracoordinated alkyl group. The difference is that the product of conjugate addition (PD) remains as a lithium enolate complexed with RCu (Scheme 10.5), while the initial product of carbocupration... 

Lithium Enolates. The control of mixed aldol additions between aldehydes and ketones that present several possible sites for enolization is a challenging problem. Such reactions are normally carried out by complete conversion of the carbonyl compound that is to serve as the nucleophile to an enolate, silyl enol ether, or imine anion. The reactive nucleophile is then allowed to react with the second reaction component. As long as the addition step is faster than proton transfer, or other mechanisms of interconversion of the nucleophilic and electrophilic components, the adduct will have the desired... 

This type of addition reaction shown in Eq. 2 and 3 [8,9] is expected to be accelerated either through activation of the carbonyl group of a, 0 -acetylenic ester (ynoates) by acid, or through enhancement of nucleophilicity of ester enolate with a strong base, for example, by use of a lithium enolate. 

Imino-substituted pyridazine 68 reacted in the 5-position with the lithium enolate of ethyl 2-methylpropanoate 69 via an interesting cascade of nucleophilic addition, ring closure via addition-elimination and tautomerization (Scheme 13) <1996JHC1731>. 

Lithium ester enolate-imine condensation has been used for the preparation of / -lactam rings via addition at the imine moiety <1996H(43)1057>. But treatment of imino derivatives of the pyridazine 293 with the lithium enolate of ethyl a,a-dimethylacetate 294 in THE led to the formation of the pyrido[3,4-r/ pyridazine 295 and its oxidized form 296. Compound 295 was obtained by nucleophilic attack of the carbanion species at C-5 of the pyridazine ring followed by cyclization (Equation 24) <1996JHC1731>. 

Cyclopropane ring formation has been brought about by Michael addition initiated ring closure (sometimes called MIRC). The reaction of methyl 4-bromocrotonate (3) with different nucleophiles either gives the SN2-displacement product 4 or the Michael addition intermediate 5 which finally forms the cyclopropane carboxylate 697 (the configuration of 6 has not been determined). This reaction has been studied with different nucleophiles in the solvent systems tetrahydrofuran-HMPA (20 1) and tetrahydrofuran the bromocrotonate 3 was reacted with 1 equivalent of a 1 M solution of the lithium enolates at —78 for 12 h at room temperature97. 

Treatment of -a,/ -unsaturated iron-acyl complexes, such as 33, with alkyllithinms or lithium amides results in exclusive diastereoselective 1,4-nucleophilic addition to generate the elaborated enolate species 34 (see Houben-Weyl, Volume 13/9a, p416, and Section 1.1.1.3.4.1.2.)... 

Table 10. Alkylation of -a,/ -Unsaturatcd Enolates 39 Reported by 1,4-Nucleophilic Addition of Lithium Benzylamide...

General methods for the preparation of a.jS-unsaturated iron-acyl complexes are deferred to Section D 1.3.4.2.5.1.1. examples of the alkylation of enolates prepared via Michael additions to ii-0 ,/ -unsaturated complexes prepared in situ are included here. Typical reaction conditions for these one-pot processes involve the presence of an excess of alkyllithium or lithium amide which first acts as base to promote elimination of alkoxide from a /f-alkoxy complex to generate the -a,)S-unsaturated complex which then suffers 1,4-nucleophilic addition by another molecule of alkyllithium or lithium amide. The resulting enolate species is then quenched with an electrophile in the usual fashion. The following table details the use of butyllithium and lithium benzylamide for these processes44,46. 

It should be noted with (3), (4), (13) and (14) only hard lithium nucleophiles are tolerated, while for (5), (6), (7) and (15) the range of useful lithium nucleophiles, e.g. including lithio-l,3-dithianes and lithium enolates, is broader. In addition, none of these Michael acceptors react with organocuprates, Grig-nard reagents or stabilized carbanions. 

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 reactions of ketone dilithio ,/i-dianions with imines and hydrazones have been investigated.77 The nucleophilic addition reaction to C—N double bonds took place selectively at the -position of dianions to form lithium (Z)-enolates containing a lithium amide portion, which is then transformed into y-amino ketones and related compounds by the subsequent reaction with electrophiles. 

Under conditions of kinetic control, the mixed Aldol Addition can be used to prepare adducts that are otherwise difficult to obtain selectively. This process begins with the irreversible generation of the kinetic enolate, e.g. by employing a sterically hindered lithium amide base such as LDA (lithium diisopropylamide). With an unsymmetrically substituted ketone, such a non-nucleophilic, sterically-demanding, strong base will abstract a proton from the least hindered side. Proton transfer is avoided with lithium enolates at low temperatures in ethereal solvents, so that addition of a second carbonyl partner (ketone or aldehyde) will produce the desired aldol... 

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