Palladium diazo ketones

Certain aryl-substituted a- and /S-amino Intones have been successfully reduced to amino alcohols by catalytic hydrogenation over palladium, platinum, or nickel catalysts. Cleavage of the carbon chain sometimes occurs during catalytic hydrogenation of /S-amino ketones. Fair yields of the amino alcohols ate obtained in these cases by reduction with sodium amalgam in dilute acid or aluminum amalgam and water. /S-Amino aldehydes from the Mannich reaction (method 444) are reduced in excellent yields to amino alcohols by lithium aluminum hydride or by catalytic hydrogenation over Raney nickel. Lithium aluminum hydride reduces diazo ketones to 1-amino-2-alkanols (93-99%)- ... 

The methoxymethyl ether protecting groups of 33 were then cleaved using triphenylphosphine and carbon tetrabromide. The resulting hydroquinone function was oxidized by palladium on carbon under an atmosphere of air to afford the quinone 52 (70 %). A two-step procedure was implemented to install the diazo function. First, the ketone function of 52 was condensed with N,N -bis( tert-butyldimethylsilyl)hydrazine in the presence of scandium triflate, which formed the Af-tert-butyldimethylsilyl hydrazone 53. The hydrazone (53) was then oxidized using difluoroiodobenzene to afford kinamycin C (3) in 35 % yield. 

Intermolecular cyclopropanation of diazoketones is an effective method in organic synthesis. Wenkert and coworkers have applied this methodology to the synthesis of a substantial number of cyclopropane adducts 2868, 2969 and 307° which are synthetic intermediates in the preparation of natural products (equations 41—43). Copper catalysts were chosen for these transformations. Another interesting application of intermolecular cyclopropanation is to be found in Daniewski s total synthesis of an aromatic steroid. Palladium(II) acetate catalysed decomposition of 4-bromo-l-diazo-2-butanone in the presence of m-methoxystyrene was used to give the cyclopropyl ketone 31 which was a key intermediate in the total synthesis (equation 44)71. 

Apart from routine applications to cyclopropane synthesis,the application of new catalysts to the decomposition of diazo-compounds has received considerable attention. The use of palladium acetate, originally reported in 1972 by Paulissen et o/., has been extended and applied to diazomethane and ethyl diazoacetate in the presence of aP-unsaturated carbonyl compounds. With a- and a-substituted aP-unsaturated ketones, stereospecific cis-addition occurs in excellent yields, but the catalyst proves to be ineffective with analogous trisubstituted olefins, as illustrated for the formation of (110) with diazomethane. The use of palladium chloride with the... 

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