Organocatalysis Cinchona alkaloids

In particular, it is not only the cinchona alkaloids that are suitable chiral sources for asymmetric organocatalysis [6], but also the corresponding ammonium salts. Indeed, the latter are particularly useful for chiral PTCs because (1) both pseudo enantiomers of the starting amines are inexpensive and available commercially (2) various quaternary ammonium salts can be easily prepared by the use of alkyl halides in a single step and (3) the olefin and hydroxyl functions are beneficial for further modification of the catalyst. In this chapter, the details of recent progress on asymmetric phase-transfer catalysis are described, with special focus on cinchona-derived ammonium salts, except for asymmetric alkylation in a-amino acid synthesis. 

An enantioselective fluorination method with catalytic potential has not been realized until recently, when Takeuchi and Shibata and co-workers and the Cahard group independently demonstrated that asymmetric organocatalysis might be a suitable tool for catalytic enantioselective construction of C-F bonds [78-80]. This agent-controlled enantioselective fluorination concept, which requires the use of silyl enol ethers, 63, or active esters, e.g. 65, as starting material, is shown in Scheme 3.25. Cinchona alkaloids were found to be useful, re-usable organocata-lysts, although stoichiometric amounts were required. 

In 1982, Wynberg and coworkers discovered the cinchona alkaloid catalyzed enantioselective aldol lactonization of ketenes with chloral or trichloroacetone [35], in which the zwitterionic acyl ammonium enolate provides the carbon nucleophile. This work is probably one of the most important early contributions to enantioselective organocatalysis [36], One drawback associated with this process is the severe substrate limitations. The aldehydes should be highly reactive, presumably due to the relatively limited nudeophilicity of ammonium enolates. Nelson and coworkers first addressed the scope and reactivity problems associated with Wynberg s original protocol by combining a cinchona alkaloid derivative (O-trimethylsilylquinine (12) or O-trimethylsilylquinidine (13)) with a metal Lewis acid as a cocatalyst to... 

Cinchona alkaloids are readily available natural chiral compounds and have a long history to be utilized as organocatalysts in asymmetric catalysis [3, 4]. They are multifunctional, tunable, and more importantly, they could promote a diversity of reactions through different catalytic mechanisms, which make them privileged catalysts in organocatalysis. In this chapter, the applications of cinchona alkaloids and their derivatives for asymmetric cydoaddition reactions after 2000, especially for the construction of a variety of five- and six-membered cyclic compounds, are discussed. 

Beside the cross aldol reaction, the Mannich reaction, too, has been the object of successful efforts using organocatalysis. The use of small organic molecules such as proline, cyclohexane diamine and Cinchona alkaloid-derived catalysts has proven extraordinarily useful for the development of asymmetric Mannich reactions in traditional polar solvents such as DMSO, DMP, DMF, etc. However, very few studies have been conducted so far in non-conventional solvents. 

Some other very important events in the historic development of asymmetric organocatalysis appeared between 1980 and the late 1990s, such as the development of the enantioselective alkylation of enolates using cinchona-alkaloid-based quaternary ammonium salts under phase-transfer conditions or the use of chiral Bronsted acids by Inoue or Jacobsen for the asymmetric hydro-cyanation of aldehydes and imines respectively. These initial reports acted as the launching point for a very rich chemistry that was extensively developed in the following years, such as the enantioselective catalysis by H-bonding activation or the asymmetric phase-transfer catalysis. The same would apply to the development of enantioselective versions of the Morita-Baylis-Hillman reaction,to the use of polyamino acids for the epoxidation of enones, also known as the Julia epoxidation or to the chemistry by Denmark in the phosphor-amide-catalyzed aldol reaction. ... 

Asymmetric cyanohydrin synthesis remains an important reaction for organocatalysis and many of the catalyst classes discussed in subsequent chapters give highly effective catalysts for this reaction. These include Cinchona alkaloid derivatives, thioureas, guanidines, amine-oxides, diols and diamines. 

Asymmetric phase-transfer catalysis usually stands somewhat separate from the rest of asymmetric organocatalysis and has always been dominated by metal-free catalysts. The earliest report in asymmetric phase-transfer catalysis dates back 30 years to 1984 when Dolling and coworkers first reported the use of a quaternised Cinchona alkaloid (6) as a phase-transfer catalyst for the asymmetric alleviation of ketone 7 during an asymmetric synthesis of (- -)-Indacrinone (Scheme 1.5). Quaternised Cinchona alkaloids dominated the area of asymmetric phase-transfer catalysis for the rest of the 20th century, and were especially used as catalysts for asymmetric amino... 

C.E. Song, Cinchona Alkaloids in Synthesis and Catalysis Ligands, Immobolization and Organocatalysis, Wiley-VCH, 2009. ISBN 9783527324163. 

With the development of the enantioselective allylic-allylic alkylation of a,a-dicyanoalkenes and MBH carbonates by dual organocatalysis of commercially available modified cinchona alkaloids and (5)-BINOL, Chen and co-workers have delivered an elegant construction of cyclohexene derivatives. The intramolecular Michael reaction of allylic allylic alkylation product 75a could be cyclized to give the desired cyclohexene 76 in the presence of DBU (Scheme 4.25). In the presence of nucleophile BnNH2, allylic compound 75b furnished an imexpected cyclic product 77 rather than the formal double Michael adduct. Interestingly, the reaction of a,a-dicyanoalkene 79 and MBH carbonate 80 under optimized catalytic conditions directly afforded cyclohexene derivatives 81a-c in... 

Another important highlight in organocatalysis was developed by Bredig, who reported the addition of HCN to benzaldehyde in the presence of cinchona alkaloids as catalysts to obtain mandelonitrile with less than 10% ee. However, the importance of this reaction is, from a conceptual point of view, groundbreaking (Scheme 1.1) [4]. 

After the first successful application of Cinchona alkaloid-based quaternary amo-nium salts as chiral phase-transfer catalysts in 1984 [187], the use of chiral quaternary ammonium salts in asymmetric catalysis has experienced a notable growth [177a, 188]. In particular, the asymmetric alkylation of glycine-derived Schiff bases by means of phase-transfer organocatalysis, pioneered by O Donnell et al. [ 189] and further improved by Lygo and Wainwright [190] and by Maruoka and co-workers [191], among others, has become one of the most reliable procedures for... 

For some years the group of Li Deng has been investigating carefully the use of Cinchona alkaloids in asymmetric organocatalysis resulting in the development of numerous highly useful applications 424). Recently, they developed a catalytic tandem conjugate addition/protonation protocol to access compounds with tertiary... 

Wu EH, Hong R, Khan JH, Liu XF, Deng L (2006) Asymmetric Synthesis of Chiral Aldehydes by Conjugate Additions with Bifunctional Organocatalysis by Cinchona Alkaloids. Angew Chem Int Ed 45 4301... 

Marcelli T, Hiemstra H (2010) Cinchona Alkaloids in Asymmetric Organocatalysis. Synthesis 1229... 

The first highly enantio-selective a-fluorination of ketones using organocatalysis has been accomplished. " The optimal catalytic system, a primary amine-functionalized cinchona alkaloid (24), allows the direct and asymmetric a-fluorination of a variety of carbo- and hetero-cyclic substrates. Furthermore, this protocol also provides diastereo-, regio-, and chemo-selective catalyst control in fluorinations involving complex carbonyl systems (up to 98 2 dr, 99% ee, and >99 1 regiocontrol). 

In 2009, Chen et al. reported the first highly enantioselective allylic-allylic alkylation of a,a-dicyanoalkenes with Morita-Baylis-Hillman carbonates by dual organocatalysis of commercially available modified cinchona alkaloids and S)-BINOL. Excellent stereoselectivities were achieved for a broad range of substrates by using hydroquinidine (anthraquinone-l,4-diyl) diether ((DHQD)2AQN) as the cinchona alkaloid. Indeed, in all the cases studied, only one diastereomer was isolated with both excellent enantioselectivity and yield, as shown in Scheme 5.9. 

---