Organocatalysis thiourea catalysts

Asymmetric Organocatalysis Introducing a Thiourea Catalyst for the Petasis Reaction... 

Recently, a dual organocatalysis approach, namely, the combination of the achiral nucleophilic Lewis base catalyst DMAP (23) and the chiral anion-binding thiourea catalyst 27, was applied to the Steglich rearrangement to provide a,a-disubstituted amino acid derivatives 24 in a highly enantioselective fashion (Scheme 43.5) [14]. Notably, replacement of the nucleophilic codiamino acid derivatives with excellent enantiomeric excesses (88-93% ee). 

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. 

To circumvent the potential problems associated with the use of metallic catalysts in the area of biomedical applications, organocatalysis was first investigated by Iwasaki et al using l,8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene (DBU) and l,5,7-triazabicyclo[4.4.0]dec-5-ene (TBD). This procedure was successfully used by other groups to elaborate complex PPE architectures. Clement et al. improved the procedure by using a combination of thiourea and DBU that was found to be an effective... 

A pioneer in the field of the asymmetrie (thio)urea organocatalysis was Eric Jacohsen, who first reported a chiral (polymer-hound) Schiff base thiourea derivative for asymmetric Strecker reactions optimised from parallel synthetic libraries/ These catalysts can be used either in solution or immobilised to a polystyrene resin, with the latter retaining efficiency, after repeated recycling/ The key factors responsible for high enantioselectivities were the presence of bullqr substituents at both the amino acid position and at the 3-position of the aromatic ring (Scheme 19.3). 

New cinchona derivatives are continuously being developed for appUcation in asymmetric organocatalysis. Examples of catalysts obtained by further modification of existing derivatives include an N-oxide of dihydrocupreidine [127], a C6 -N-Boc-glycine-P-isocupreine (53) [128], a C9 thiourea substituted at a remote site with a sulfonamide group (54) [129, 130], and catalysts with an amine as well as a thiourea group (55) [131] (Figure 6.16). 

This gives chapter an overview of natural cinchona alkaloids and synthetic derivatives together with examples of their use in asymmetric organocatalysis. In recent years, the emphasis has been on the development of cinchona-based bifunctional catalysts, in particular species with a thiourea moiety. The search for new cinchona-based organocatalysts continues and new derivatives are relentlessly being prepared and applied for specific enantioselective reactions. The design of these new... 

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