Reagents oxazaborolidine

The enantioselective reduction of acylpyridines has been improved by the addition of trimethoxyborane to the oxazaborolidine reagent <97SL273, 97T12405>. An alkyl pyridyl sulfoxide is resolved by complexation with a chiral host compound derived from tartaric acid <97TA2505>. 

The use of oxazaborolidine reagents as catalysts for the asymmetric reduction of ketones in the presence of a borane reducing agent was first... 

The most successful of the Lewis acid catalysts are oxazaborolidines prepared from chiral amino alcohols and boranes. These compounds lead to enantioselective reduction of acetophenone by an external reductant, usually diborane. The chiral environment established in the complex leads to facial selectivity. The most widely known example of these reagents is derived from the amino acid proline. Several other examples of this type of reagent have been developed, and these will be discussed more completely in Section 5.2 of part B. 

The oxazaborolidines are easily prepared by heating ephedrine with borane dimethyl sulfide or the appropriate boronate ester. The aluminum reagent C is obtained by mixing ephedrine and trimethylaluminum. Borolidinc A is superior to its methyl derivative B and to the aluminum analog C. The diastereomeric borolidine obtained from borane and (S,S)-pseu-doephedrine failed to show any cnantioselectivity25. A variety of aromatic aldehydes can be enantioselectively alkylated in the presence of A, however, with heptanal the enantioselectivity is poor25. 

Boranes have opened the door to asymmetric reduction of carbonyl compounds. The first attempt at modifying borane with a chiral ligand was reported by Fiaud and Kagan,75 who used amphetamine borane and desoxyephedrine borane to reduce acetophenone. The ee of the 1-phenyl ethanol obtained was quite low (<5%). A more successful borane-derived reagent, oxazaborolidine, was introduced by Hirao et al.76 in 1981 and was further improved by Itsuno and Corey.77 Today, this system can provide high stereoselectivity in the asymmetric reduction of carbonyl compounds, including alkyl ketones. 

Chiral oxazaborolidines. Enantioselective reduction of ketones with a reagent prepared from BH, and the chiral vic-amino alcohol 1 (12,31) is now known to involve an oxazaborolidine. Thus BH3 and (S)-l, derived from valine, react rapidly in THF to form 2, m.p. 105-110°, which can serve as an efficient catalyst... 

An even more efficient approach to enantioselective reduction is to use a chiral catalyst. One of the most promising is the oxazaborolidine I, which is ultimately derived from the amino acid proline.96 The enantiomer is also available. A catalytic amount (5— 20 mol %) of this reagent along with BH3 as the reductant can reduce ketones such as acetophone and pinacolone in >95% e.e. An adduct of borane and I is the active reductant. 

The CBS-reduction [137] of prochiral ketones is a well-known process which employs a chiral oxazaboroHdine as catalyst and BHs-THF or catecholborane as stoichiometric reductants. It is believed that the active catalytic species is a LLA, resulting from coordination of the oxazaborolidine nitrogen with the boron reagent to render the oxazaborolidine boron atom highly Lewis acidic [87]. Similarly, Corey... 

One popular method that has been apphed to industrial processes for the enantio-selective reduction of prochiral ketones, leading to the corresponding optically active secondary alcohols, is based on the use of chiral 1,3,2-oxazaborolidines. The original catalyst and reagent system [diphenyl prolinol/methane boronic acid (R)] is known as the Corey-Bakshi-Shibata reagent. Numerous examples... 

The characteristic feature of the aforementioned oxazaborolidine catalyst system consists of a-sulfonamide carboxylic acid ligand for boron reagent, where the five-membered ring system seems to be the major structural feature for the active catalyst. Accordingly, tartaric acid-derived chiral (acyloxy)borane (CAB) complexes can also catalyze the asymmetric Diels-Alder reaction of a,P-unsaturated aldehydes with a high level of asymmetric induction [10] (Eq. 8A.4). Similarly, a chiral tartrate-derived dioxaborolidine has been introduced as a catalyst for enantioselective Diels-Alder reaction of 2-bromoacrolein [11] (Eq. 8A.5). 

The use of oxazaborolidines as asymmetric reduction catalysts257 and the enantioselectivity of diphcnyloxazaborolidinc reduction of ketones have been reviewed.258 Large-scale practical enantioselective reduction of prochiral ketones has been reviewed with particular emphasis on the Itsuno-Corey oxazaborolidinc and Brown s 5-chlorodiisopinocampheylborane (Ipc2BCl) as reagents.259 Brown himself has also reviewed the use of Ipc2BCl.260 Indolinoalkylboranes in the form of dimers have been confirmed by 11B NMR as the products of the reduction of trifluoroacetylindoles by diborane.261... 

A review describing the major advances in the field of asymmetric reduction of achiral ketones using borohydrides, exemplified by oxazaborolidines and /9-chlorodiisopino- camphenylborane, has appeared. Use of sodium borohydride in combination with chiral Lewis acids has been discussed.298 The usefulness of sodium triacetoxyboro-hydride in the reductive amination of aldehydes and ketones has been reviewed. The wide scope of the reagent, its diverse and numerous applications, and high tolerance for many functional groups have been discussed.299 The preparation, properties, and synthetic application of lithium aminoborohydrides (LABs) have been reviewed. 

Organocatalytic asymmetric carbonyl reductions have been achieved with boranes in the presence of oxazaborolidine and phosphorus-based catalysts (Section 11.1), with borohydride reagents in the presence of phase-transfer catalysts (Section 11.2), and with hydrosilanes in the presence of chiral nucleophilic activators (Section 11.3). 

In particular, reduction of unsymmetric ketones to alcohols has become one of the more useful reactions. To achieve the selective preparation of one enantiomer of the alcohol, chemists first modified the classical reagents with optically active ligands this led to modified hydrides. The second method consisted of reaction of the ketone with a classical reducing agent in the presence of a chiral catalyst. The aim of this chapter is to highlight one of the best practical methods that could be used on an industrial scale the oxazaborolidine catalyzed reduction.1 1 This chapter gives an introductory overview of oxazaborolidine reductions and covers those of proline derivatives in-depth. For the oxazaborolidine derivatives of l-amino-2-indanol for ketone reductions see Chapter 17. 

Many chiral auxiliaries are derived from 1,2-amino alcohols.7 These include oxazolidinones (l),7-9 oxazolines (2),10 11 bis-oxazolines (3),1213 oxazinones (4),14 and oxazaborolidines (5).15-17 Even the 1,2-amino alcohol itself can be used as a chiral auxiliary.18-22 Other chiral auxiliaries examples include camphorsultams (6),23 piperazinediones (7),24 SAMP [(S)-l-amino-2-methoxy-methylpyrrolidine] (8) and RAMP (ent-8),25 chiral boranes such as isopinocampheylborane (9),26 and tartaric acid esters (10). For examples of terpenes as chiral auxiliaries, see Chapter 5. Some of these auxiliaries have been used as ligands in reagents (e.g., Chapters 17 and 24), such as 3 and 5, whereas others have only been used at laboratory scale (e.g., 6 and 7). It should be noted that some auxiliaries may be used to synthesize starting materials, such as an unnatural amino acid, for a drug synthesis, and these may not have been reported in the primary literature. 

The pioneering studies by Itsuno [1] and Corey [2] on the development of the asymmetric hydroboration of ketones using oxazaborolidines have made it possible to easily obtain chiral secondary alcohols with excellent optical purity [3]. Scheme 1 shows examples of Corey s (Corey-Bakshi-Shibata) CBS reduction. When oxazaborolidines 1 were used as catalysts (usually 0.01-0.1 equiv), a wide variety of ketones were reduced by borane reagents with consistently high enan-tioselectivity [2]. The sense of enantioselection was predictable. Many important biologically active compounds and functional materials have been synthesized using this versatile reaction [2-4]. 

In the synthesis of (—)-hennoxazole (37), Wipf and Lim used a CBS reagent to prepare the chiral allylic alcohol 3918 (Scheme 4.3n). The enantioselective reduction of the enone 38 using a catalytic amount of the oxazaborolidine 28b... 

The oxazaborolidine-catalyzed enantioselective reduction of aryl alkyl ketones was used in the asymmetric synthesis of the naturally occurring molecule (15 )-(—)-salsolidine 4119 (Scheme 4.3o). The ketone 42 underwent oxazaboroli-dine-mediated reduction to furnish the alcohol 43 in excellent yield and greater than 95% ee. The alcohol 43 was then coupled with the reagent 44 under Mit-sunobu conditions to produce the aminoacetal 45. 

Several novel catalysts in which borohydride is complexed with a difiinctional chiral ligand have been developed and used for the enantioselective reduction of prochiral ketones to chiral alcohols. Corey-Bakshi-Shibatareduction (CBS reduction) is an organic reaction which reduces ketones enantioselectively into alcohols by using chiral oxazaborolidines and BHs-THF or catecholborane as stoichiometric reductants (CBS reagent, 1.64) (also see Chapter 6, section 6.4.2). 

Handling, Storage, and Precautions no special information available. In general, however, it is advisable that all reactions with this reagent be conducted in a well ventilated fume hood. Care should be exercised to avoid contact of this reagent and the derived oxazaborolidine catalyst with the eyes and skin. 

Reaction of ATBH with trimethyl borate in THF presumably affords the B-methoxy oxazaborolidine, which effectively catalyzes asymmetric borane reduction of prochi-ral ketones. Thus the borane reduction of acetophenone with the reagent prepared in situ from 0.1 equiv of ATBH and 0.12 equiv of trimethyl borate provides... 

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