Potassium borohydride epoxides

The importance of reactions with complex, metal hydrides in carbohydrate chemistry is well documented by a vast number of publications that deal mainly with reduction of carbonyl groups, N- and O-acyl functions, lactones, azides, and epoxides, as well as with reactions of sulfonic esters. With rare exceptions, lithium aluminum hydride and lithium, sodium, or potassium borohydride are the... 

Conversion of the resulting separate D-seco D-E trans i-vincadiffor-mine diols 198-201 to their primary tosylates and tertiary trimethylsilyl-oxy derivatives 202-205 and coupling to vindoline by the chlorination-silver tetrafluoroborate-potassium borohydride sequence provided amino tosylates 206-209, which could be directly subjected to cyclization or, alternatively, converted to the C-20 -C-21 epoxides 178, 181, 210, and 211 by reaction with tetrabutylammonium fluoride (Scheme 53). While cyclization of the tosylates 206-209 led essentially only to quaternary salts which could be debenzylated to provide the lower energy atropi-somer of vinblastine (1), leurosidine (56), vincovaline (184), and its C-20 epimer (212) respectively, cyclization of the epoxides 178, 181, 210, and... 

Sodium and potassium borohydrides are above all used for reducing aldehydes and ketones (Sections 3.2.1, 3.2.2) a,p-ethylenic ketones are converted to mixtures [W3]. In alcoholic media or THF, they leave epoxides, esters and lactones, acids, amides, and most nitro compounds unreacted, but they reduce halides (Section 2.1), anhydrides (Section 3.2.6), quartemary pyridinium salts (Section 3.3), double bonds conjugated to two electron-withdrawing groups (Sections 3.2.9, 4.4), and CUPd... 

A niamber of reactions have been examined using these phase transfer catalytic species. These include displacement reactions of solid potassium phenoxide, solid sodium azide and aqueous sodium azide on racemic ethyl-2-bromopropionate in toluene (similar to reaction 5), sodium borohydride (solid) reductions of acetophenone and octan-2-one, chalcone epoxidations using aqueous H2O2/OH" (reaction 4) and Michael additions of nitromethane to chalcone in the presence of anhydrous potassium fluoride (reaction 3). Details of these results will be published in due course and at the moment it is possible to record only a few representative examples of the displacements and reductions. 

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