Oxathians

Oxathiane and -dithiane are formed from ethylene oxide and hydrogen sulfide at 200°C in the presence of an aluminum oxide catalyst (65). 

Oxathiane 101 is readily deprotonated using s-BuLi, and the resulting anion reacts with alkyl halides, ketones, and benzonitrile (85JOC657). The majority of work in this area, however, is due to Eliel and coworkers and has involved chiral 1,3-oxathianes as asymmetric acyl anion equivalents. In the earliest work it was demonstrated that the oxathianes 102 and 103, obtained in enantiomeri-cally pure form by a sequence involving resolution, could be deprotonated with butyllithium and added to benzaldehyde. The products were formed with poor selectivity at the new stereocenter, however, and oxidation followed by addition... 

Solladie-Cavallo s group used Eliel s oxathiane 1 (derived from pulegone) in asymmetric epoxidation (Scheme 1.3) [1]. This sulfide was initially benzylated to form a single diastereomer of the sulfonium salt 2. Epoxidation was then carried out at low temperature with the aid of sodium hydride to furnish diaryl epoxides 3 with high enantioselectivities, and with recovery of the chiral sulfide 1. 

For oxathiane 1, lone pair selectivity is controlled by steric interactions of the gem-dimethyl group and an anomeric effect, which renders the equatorial lone pair less nucleophilic than the axial lone pair. Of the resulting ylide conformations, 25a will be strongly preferred and will react on the more open Re face, since the Si face is blocked by the gem-dimethyl group (Scheme 1.9) [3, 15]. 

Solladie-Cavallo has recently reported a two-step asymmetric synthesis of dis-ubstituted N-tosylaziridines from (R,R,R,Ss)-(-)-sulfonium salt 2 (derived from Eliel s oxathiane see Section 1.2.1.1) and N-tosyl imines with use of phosphazine base (EtP2) to generate the ylide (Scheme 1.42) [67], Although the diastereoselectiv-ity was highly substrate-dependent, the enantioselectivities obtained were very high (98.7-99.9%). The chiral auxiliary, although used in stoichiometric quantities, could be isolated and reused, but the practicality and scope of this procedure is limited by the use of the strong - as well as expensive and sensitive - phospha-zene base. 

Chiral sulfonium salts derived from oxathianes have been developed for stoichiometric epoxidation reactions. The sulfonium salts were deprotonated and allowed to react with a, 3-unsaturated aldehydes to give trons-vinylepoxides with excellent ees and transxis ratios (Scheme 9.16b) [76]. The yields were generally high [75], and the best results were obtained with Ar = 4-OMePh. 

The synthesis of the 2-acyloxathianes 3 makes use of the fact that for stereoelectronic reasons1, electrophilic attack on conformationally locked 2-lithiated oxathianes 1 leads exclusively to equatorially substituted products 2. A subsequent oxidation step completes the synthesis. 

The major drawback to using oxathianes 3 is that they are difficult to obtain in optically pure form because their synthesis includes a tedious racemate resolution. In order to circumvent this problem, oxathiane 11 was developed. Its synthesis starts with the readily available ( + )-10-camphorsulfonie acid (8)49. 

Using oxathiane 11, ( + )-(i )-2-methoxy-2-phenylpropanoic acid was obtained in 97% ee, however, the synthesis contains some inconvenient reaction steps. Thus, reduction of ( + )-10-camphorsulfonic acid (8) leads in low yield to a mixture of 10-mercaptoisoborneol (9 A) and 10-mercaptoborneol (9B) which must be separated by chromatography. The oxathiane 10 resists deprotonation with butyllithium and, therefore,, y -butyllithium had to be employed. Furthermore, after addition of methylmagnesium iodide, cleavage of the oxathiane moiety 12, with iodomethane did not proceed as well as with the simpler oxathianes 3. 

A much more readily accessible chiral auxiliary is oxathiane 16, which can be smoothly synthesized from inexpensive (+)-pulegone (14)3S. 

Deprotonation of oxathiane 16 with butyllithium, addition of an appropriate aldehyde and subsequent oxidation lead to the acylated oxathianes 17 which can be used in diastereose-lective nucleophilic addition reactions. 

As with oxathianes 3 (R1 = CH, R2 = H), which bear a close structural resemblance to 17, the addition of organometallic reagents is highly diastereoselective with a predominant chelation-controlled attack of the nucleophile from the Rc-sidc35 -40. In the case of vinylmagnesium bromide a considerable enhancement of the diastereo selectivity could be attained by adding... 

Cleavage of the oxathiane moiety can be carried out with iV-chlorosuccinimide/silver nitrate and leads to the a-hydroxy aldehyde 21 along with a diastereomeric mixture of sultines 20. The sultines can be reduced to the hydroxy thiol 22 which can be reconverted to the chiral auxiliary 16 in ail overall recovery of about 70%39. 

Besides 1,3-oxathianes, the 1,3-dithiane 1-oxide moiety can be used for directing the nucleophilic addition of an organometallic reagent to a carbonyl group in a diastereoselective manner. The addition of methylmagnesium iodide to the 2-acyl-l,3-dithiane 1-oxide 23A leads exclusively to the diastereomer which is formed by Re-side attack. On the other hand, addition... 

Another chiral auxiliary used in diastereoselective addition reactions is the 1,3-oxazine derivative 4a which shows a close structural resemblance to the 1,3-oxathiane 16 (vide supra). However, in contrast to the oxathiane, 4a cannot be readily acylatcd in the 2-position. Therefore, the benzoyl derivative 4b was prepared by condensing amino alcohol 3 with phenylglyoxal. 

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