Polyenes nucleophilic additions

For even, open polyenes, nucleophilic addition occurs preferentially at the terminal position for odd, open polyenes, attack occurs at the terminal positions only if the metal fragment is strongly electron withdrawing. 

Nucleophilic additions to carbonyl groups lead to alcohols which on dehydration, furnish alkenes70,71. This two-step protocol has been extremely useful for diene and polyene synthesis with wide variation in the carbonyl substrate and the nucleophilic addendum. Diene synthesis using aldol-type condensation as well as phenyl sulphonyl carbanion (the Julia reaction) are also discussed in this section. 

Similar schemes can be developed easily for analogous reactions of acceptor-substituted polyenes. For example, a triene with an acceptor group in 1-position can form six regioi-someric products of Michael addition and electrophilic capture, and each of these exists as E/Z stereoisomers, diastereomers and/or enantiomers. Thus, reactions of this type are only useful if both the regio- and stereoselectivity can be controlled fortunately, only one isomeric Michael adduct is formed in many cases. This is true in particular for polyunsaturated Michael acceptors which bear at least one triple bond besides one or more double bonds. An additional feature of the latter substrate type is that nucleophilic additions can... 

Fullerenes, among which the representative and most abundant is the 4 symmetrical Cgg with 30 double bonds and 60 single bonds, are known to behave as electron-deficient polyenes rather than aromatic compounds [7]. The energy level of the triply degenerate LUMO of Cgg is almost as low as those of p-benzoquinone or tetracyanoethylene. Thus, a wide variety of reactions have been reported for Cgg such as nucleophilic addition, [4-1-2] cycloaddition, 1,3-dipolar addition, radical and carbene additions, metal complexation, and so on [7]. Fullerene Cgg also undergoes supramolecular complexation with various host molecules having electron-donating ability and an adequate cavity size [8]. 

Krause, N. Zelder, C. Nucleophilic Additions to Dienes, Enynes and Polyenes. In The Chemistry of Dienes and Polyenes Rappoport, Z., Ed. ... 

The nucleophilic addition of a carbanion to an aldehyde or a ketone having a conjugated double bond and the subsequent dehydration sequence (Knoevenagei reaction) is a popular method for generating dienes and polyenes (equation 37). This reaction takes place efficiently and stereoselectively, when LDA is used as a base in the presence of chlorotrimethylsilane (equation 38). Knoevenagei condensation was a key reaction during many classical carotenoid syntheses. Recently, Seltzer and coworkers used the dimefiiyl acetal of acetylacetaldehyde for aldol condensation with a Cis-aldehyde, to generate the tetraenyl ketone acetal (equation 39). ... 

Nucleophilic addition to open coordinated polyenes is preferred over addition to closed polyenes. 

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