Phenylthiocyclopropyl lithium

A lot of progress in this area is due to the work of Trost, who introduced diphenylsulphonium cyclopropylide and phenylthiocyclopropyl lithium as extremely versatile C3-building blocks. The first reagent is easily available from the corresponding sulphonium salt by deprotonation with suitable bases (either under irreversible conditions with dimsyl sodium, or, preferably, in a reversible manner by employing potassium hydroxide in DMSO). The ylide adds to a,) -unsaturated carbonyl compounds forming... 

Some of these restrictions can be overcome by use of the more powerful nucleophile phenylthiocyclopropyl lithium available by metalation with n-butyllithium as illustrated in equation 106. Although this anion adds cleanly and in excellent yields to most saturated... 

Reactions of phenylthiocyclopropyl lithium with alkyl halides and epoxides have also been reported to deliver products opened to a variety of carbonyl derivatives jS-(l-Phenylthio)cyclopropyl enones have been prepared by using lithium salts of a-hydroxymethylene ketones as electrophiles and dehydrating with acid (equation 110). Rearrangement to cyclobutanones occurs with trifluoroacetic acid, whereas thermal vinylcyclopropane-cyclopentene expansion sometimes gives mixtures of regioisomers . 

As mentioned above, one major drawback of the Trost methodology is its restriction to the parent compound. It was the Cohen group who found an alternative approach to phenylthiocyclopropyl lithium chemistry by using a reductive lithiation of readily accessible cyclopropanone dithioketals which also works for alkyl-substituted cyclopropanes. The anions obtained by reduction with two equivalents of lithium naphthalene or preferably lithium l-(dimethylamino)naphthalene (LDMAN) can effectively be trapped by apt electrophiles (equation 112). 

An allylidene cyclopropane synthesized via phenylthiocyclopropyl lithium has served as a potent diene in a Diels-Alder reaction. Earlier, several methods for ring-opening of cyclopropanone dithioketals—one leading to ketones (equation 115)—had been reported ... 

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See also in sourсe #XX -- [ , , , ]

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