Osmium tetroxide, carbonylation

Sodium periodate, used along with catalytic amounts of osmium tetroxide, radienium dioxide or potassium permanganatt, can also be employed to cleave carbon-carbon double bonds. When used with osmium tetroxide, carbonyls are produced however, the presence of permanganate results in the formation of more highly oxidized products (carboxylic acids) finom secondary carbons. 

Dehydration of cortisone (198) affords the diene 199. This is then converted to ketal 200. The selectivity is due to hindrance about both the 11- and 20-carbonyl groups. The shift of the double bond to the 5,6-position is characteristic of that particular enone. Treatment of protected diene 200 with osmium tetroxide results in selective oxidation of the conjugated double bond at C-16,17 to afford the cis-diol (201). Reduction of the ketone at C-ll (202) followed by hydrolysis of the ketal function gives the intermediate 203. Selenium dioxide has been... 

One way in which the Z-a,P-unsaturated carbonyl functionality could be exploited would be via its incorporation into lactone 17. It could be predicted with some confidence that external reagents would attack the bicyclic lactonic system from its convex face. Such an a attack by osmium tetroxide would provide the correct 7,8-erythro diol stereochemistry required to reach NeuSAc. This anticipation turned out to be well founded. 

Miscellaneous. Aside from the oxidation chemistry described, only a few catalytic applications are reported, including hydrogenation of olefins (114,115), a, [3-unsaturated carbonyl compounds (116), and carbon monoxide (117) and the water gas shift reaction (118). This is so owing to the kinetic inertness of osmium complexes. A 1% by weight osmium tetroxide solution is used as a biological stain, particulady for preparation of samples for electron microscopy. In the presence of pyridine or other heterocyclic amines it is used as a selective reagent for single-stranded or open-form B-DNA (119) (see Nucleic acids). Osmium tetroxide has also been used as an indicator for unsaturated fats in animal tissue. Osmium tetroxide has seen limited if controversial use in the treatment of arthritis (120,121). 

Osmium tetroxide reacts with double bonds to form cyclic osmate(VI) diesters (10), which can then be hydrolyzed to provide vicinal diols in good yields. > If, however, sodium perio te is also present, the diol is cleaved, as in Scheme 2, and carbonyl compounds are the final products. Periodate serves the additional purpose of regenerating osmium tetroxide, thus permitting the use of this expensive and toxic reagent in minimum amounts. 

With careful choice of reagent and reaction conditions, alkenes containing other functionalities can be selectively hydroxylated without complicating side reactions. For example, the oxidation may be carried out in the presence of ester, ether, sulfide, carboxylic acid, acetal, carbonyl, halo, alcohol and aryl groups. Regioselective hydroxylation is also possible in dienes in which one center is electron poor, and some selectivity is also found between isolated double bonds. For example, syn hydroxylation of diene (5) with a catalytic amount of osmium tetroxide and N-methylmorpholine N-oxide as the secondary oxidant gives diol (6) in 46% yield, and phase transfer catalyzed permanganate oxidation of diene (7) affords diol (8) in 83% yield. 

Sodium periodate (sodium metaperiodate), NaI04 (mp 300 °C dec), which is commercially available, is applied mainly in aqueous or aqueous-alcoholic solutions. Like the free periodic acid, sodium periodate cleaves vicinal diols to carbonyl compounds [762], This reaction is especially useful in connection with potassium permanganate [763, 764] or osmium tetroxide [765], Such mixed oxidants oxidize alkenes to carbonyl compounds or carboxylic acids, evidently by way of vicinal diols as intermediates. Sulfides are transformed by sodium periodate into sulfoxides [322, 323, 766, 767, 768, 769, 770, 771, 772], and selenides are converted into selenoxides [773]. Sodium periodate is also a reoxidant of lower valency ruthenium in oxidations with ruthenium tetroxide [567, 774],... 

Periodate-osmium tetroxide oxidation (Lemieux-Johnson). - The reagent, periodate catalyzed by osmium tetroxide, operates as follows. Osmium tetroxide adds to a double bond to form an osmate ester, and this is oxidized by periodate with cleavage to carbonyl compounds and regeneration of osmium tetroxide. Discovery of the... 

The stereochemical outcome of this crucial transformation is explicable if steric factors within the cyclohexane ring are considered. If a chair cyclohexanone is assumed, the lowest energy conformation will be one in which the geminal methyl groups of the sidechain are furthest away from the carbonyl. Additionally, it is expected that an s-trans orientation would be favvored between the vicinal vinyl C-H and the methyl C-C bonds. Bases on this conformation, approach of the osmium tetroxide to the lessencumbered face of the double bond anti to the carbonyl results in the formation of the observed products 88. 

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