Palladium cycloaddition

Catalytic asymmetric Diels-Alder reactions are presented by Hayashi, who takes as the starting point the synthetically useful breakthrough in 1979 by Koga et al. The various chiral Lewis acids which can catalyze the reaction of different dieno-philes are presented. Closely related to the Diels-Alder reaction is the [3-1-2] carbo-cyclic cycloaddition of palladium trimethylenemethane with alkenes, discovered by Trost and Chan. In the second chapter Chan provides some brief background information about this class of cycloaddition reaction, but concentrates primarily on recent advances. The part of the book dealing with carbo-cycloaddition reactions is... 

Recent Advances in Palladium-catalyzed Cycloadditions involving Trimethylenemethane and its Analogs... 

The discovery of palladium trimethylenemethane (TMM) cycloadditions by Trost and Chan over two decades ago constitutes one of the significant advancements in ring-construction methodology [1]. In their seminal work it was shown that in the presence of a palladium(O) catalyst, 2-[(trimethylsilyl)methyl]-2-propen-l-yl acetate (1) generates a TMM-Pd intermediate (2) that serves as the all-carbon 1,3-di-pole. It was further demonstrated that (2) could be efficiently trapped by an electron-deficient olefin to give a methylenecyclopentane via a [3-1-2] cycloaddition (Eq. 1). 

The parent TMM precursor (1), now commercially available, has played a pivotal role in the execution of many synthetic plans directed at natural and unnatural targets. Reaction of (1) with 2-(methoxycarbonyl)cyclohexenone (14, R=C02Me) in the presence of palladium acetate and triethyl phosphite produced the adduct (15) in near quantitative yield. This cycloadduct is a critical intermediate in the total synthesis of a hydroxykempenone (16), a component of the defensive substances secreted by termites (Scheme 2.5) [12]. In accord with a previous observation by Trost that unactivated 2-cyclohexenone reacts poorly with TMM-Pd [13], the substrate (14, R=Me) was essentially inert in the cycloaddition. 

Palladium-catalyzed cycloaddition of (1) to C o has been reported to proceed in 25% yield. Interestingly, the reaction requires the C o be first treated with (PPh3)4Pd and dppe in benzene before the introduction of (1) [17]. 

Intramolecular cycloadditions of substrates with a cleavable tether have also been realized. Thus esters (37a-37d) provided the structurally interesting tricyclic lactones (38-43). It is interesting to note that the cyclododecenyl system (w = 7) proceeded at room temperature whereas all others required refluxing dioxane. In each case, the stereoselectivity with respect to the tether was excellent. As expected, the cyclohexenyl (n=l) and cycloheptenyl (n = 2) gave the syn adducts (38) and (39) almost exclusively. On the other hand, the cyclooctenyl (n = 3) and cyclododecenyl (n = 7) systems favored the anti adducts (41) and (42) instead. The formation of the endocyclic isomer (39, n=l) in the cyclohexenyl case can be explained by the isomerization of the initial adduct (44), which can not cyclize due to ring-strain, to the other 7t-allyl-Pd intermediate (45) which then ring-closes to (39) (Scheme 2.13) [20]. While the yields may not be spectacular, it is still remarkable that these reactions proceeded as well as they did since the substrates do contain another allylic ester moiety which is known to undergo ionization in the presence of the same palladium catalyst. 

The "acyl effect" proves crucial in the formation of the perhydroazulene systems cyclization can only take place with the presence of an acyl group on the TMM portion whereas the parent hydrocarbon fails. For example, treatment of substrate (51) with the palladium catalyst gave a mixture of the bicyclic compounds (52) and (53) in 51% yield. The formation of endocyclic olefin (52) is presumed to occur when the first formed (53) was exposed to silica gel during purification [22]. This intramolecular cycloaddition strategy was utilized in a highly diastereoselec-tive preparation of a key intermediate (54) in the total synthesis of (-)-isoclavuker-in A (55) (Scheme 2.16) [21]. 

Cationic BINAP-palladium and platinum complexes 30a,b can catalyze highly enantioselective cycloaddition reactions of arylglyoxals with acyclic and cyclic... 

For the activation of a substrate such as 19a via coordination of the two carbonyl oxygen atoms to the metal, one should expect that a hard Lewis acid would be more suitable, since the carbonyl oxygens are hard Lewis bases. Nevertheless, Fu-rukawa et al. succeeded in applying the relative soft metal palladium as catalyst for the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction between 1 and 19a (Scheme 6.36) [79, 80]. They applied the dicationic Pd-BINAP 54 as the catalyst, and whereas this type of catalytic reactions is often carried out at rt or at 0°C, the reactions catalyzed by 54 required heating at 40 °C in order to proceed. In most cases mixtures of endo-21 and exo-21 were obtained, however, high enantioselectivity of up to 93% were obtained for reactions of some derivatives of 1. 

Furukawa et al. also applied the above described palladium catalyst to the inverse electron-demand 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of nitrones with vinyl ethers. However, all products obtained in this manner were racemic [81]. 

The reactions of nitrones constitute the absolute majority of metal-catalyzed asymmetric 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reactions. Boron, aluminum, titanium, copper and palladium catalysts have been tested for the inverse electron-demand 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction of nitrones with electron-rich alkenes. Fair enantioselectivities of up to 79% ee were obtained with oxazaborolidinone catalysts. However, the AlMe-3,3 -Ar-BINOL complexes proved to be superior for reactions of both acyclic and cyclic nitrones and more than >99% ee was obtained in some reactions. The Cu(OTf)2-BOX catalyst was efficient for reactions of the glyoxylate-derived nitrones with vinyl ethers and enantioselectivities of up to 93% ee were obtained. 

Yamamoto and coworkers developed cycloadditions between activated olefins and vinylaziridines 253 with the aid of a palladium(O) catalyst (Scheme 2.63) [94], based on their three-component aminoallylation reaction. The corresponding 4-vi-nylpyrrolidines 255 were obtained as mixtures of diastereomers (ds trans= 55 45 to 23 77). 

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