Prochiral nucleophilic addition

Step 2 of Figure 29.12 Isomerization Citrate, a prochiral tertiary alcohol, is next converted into its isomer, (2, 35)-isocitrate, a chiral secondary alcohol. The isomerization occurs in two steps, both of which are catalyzed by the same aconitase enzyme. The initial step is an ElcB dehydration of a /3-hydroxy acid to give cfs-aconitate, the same sort of reaction that occurs in step 9 of glycolysis (Figure 29.7). The second step is a conjugate nucleophilic addition of water to the C=C bond (Section 19.13). The dehydration of citrate takes place specifically on the pro-R arm—the one derived from oxaloacetate—rather than on the pro-S arm derived from acetyl CoA. 

Sulfoxides (R1—SO—R2), which are tricoordinate sulfur compounds, are chiral when R1 and R2 are different, and a-sulfmyl carbanions derived from optically active sulfoxides are known to retain the chirality. Therefore, these chiral carbanions usually give products which are rich in one diastereomer upon treatment with some prochiral reagents. Thus, optically active sulfoxides have been used as versatile reagents for asymmetric syntheses of many naturally occurring products116, since optically active a-sulfinyl carbanions can cause asymmetric induction in the C—C bond formation due to their close vicinity. In the following four subsections various reactions of a-sulfinyl carbanions are described (A) alkylation and acylation, (B) addition to unsaturated bonds such as C=0, C=N or C= N, (C) nucleophilic addition to a, /5-unsaturated sulfoxides, and (D) reactions of allylic sulfoxides. 

The scope of reactions catalyzed by metalacychc iridium-phosphoramidite complexes is remarkably broad, but reactions with some substrates, such as allylic alcohols, prochiral nucleophiles, branched allylic esters, and highly substituted allylic esters, that would form synthetically valuable products or would lead to simpler symthesis of reactants occur with low yields and selectivities. In addition, iridium-catalyzed allylic substitution reactions are sensitive to air and water and must be conducted with dry solvents under an inert atmosphere. Several advances have helped to overcome some, but not aU of these challenges. 

The introduction of umpoled synthons 177 into aldehydes or prochiral ketones leads to the formation of a new stereogenic center. In contrast to the pendant of a-bromo-a-lithio alkenes, an efficient chiral a-lithiated vinyl ether has not been developed so far. Nevertheless, substantial diastereoselectivity is observed in the addition of lithiated vinyl ethers to several chiral carbonyl compounds, in particular cyclic ketones. In these cases, stereocontrol is exhibited by the chirality of the aldehyde or ketone in the sense of substrate-induced stereoselectivity. This is illustrated by the reaction of 1-methoxy-l-lithio ethene 56 with estrone methyl ether, which is attacked by the nucleophilic carbenoid exclusively from the a-face —the typical stereochemical outcome of the nucleophilic addition to H-ketosteroids . Representative examples of various acyclic and cyclic a-lithiated vinyl ethers, generated by deprotonation, and their reactions with electrophiles are given in Table 6. 

Williams group observed low enantioselectivities for the Michael addition of a prochiral nucleophile, ethyl 2-cyanopropionate 623, to methyl vinyl ketone 624 catalyzed by chiral platinum complexes (Scheme 8.196)." The NMR analysis indicated that these cationic Pt complexes act as Lewis acids toward nitriles. The X-ray crystal structure as well NMR analysis showed that the solvent ligand that is readily displaced by an organic substrate is situated cis to the nitrogen donor in the Pt complex and, therefore, is in a chiral pocket created by the oxazoline ring. 

Calculations have shown that nucleophiles with groups attached, such as a methyl anion, take up a staggered arrangement with respect to the sp2 centre they are attacking42. Based on such an approach of the nucleophile, Bassindale, Taylor and collaborators have proposed an empirical model (Scheme 10) for the nucleophilic addition of prochiral car-banions to prochiral carbonyls in the absence of chelation control57. 

A nucleophilic addition to a prochiral carbonyl compound R -CO-R gives a racemic mixture of alcohols. If the substituent R is chiral, the two faces of the carbonyl become... 

Carbohydrate-derived auxiliaries exhibit an efficient stereoselective potential in a number of nucleophilic addition reactions on prochiral imines. a-Amino acids, P amino acids and their derivatives can be synthesized in few synthetic steps, and with high enantiomeric purity. A variety of chiral heterocycles can readily be obtained from glycosyl imines by stereoselective transformations, providing evidence that carbohydrates have now been established as useful auxiliaries in stereoselective syntheses of various interesting classes of chiral compounds. 

The nucleophilic addition on substituted ketenes is a well-known method to generate a prochiral enolate that can be further protonated by a chiral source of proton. Metallic nucleophiles are used under anhydrous conditions therefore, the optically pure source of proton must be added then (often in a stoichiometric amount) to control the protonation. In the case of a protic nucleophile, an alcohol, a thiol, or an amine, the chiral inductor is usually present at the beginning of the reaction since it also catalyzes the addition of the heteroatomic nucleophile before mediating the enantioselective protonation (Scheme 7.5). The use of a chiral tertiary amine as catalyst generates a zwitterionic intermediate B by nucleophilic addition on ketene A, followed by a rapid diastereoselective protonation of the enolate to acylammonium C, and then the release of the catalyst via its substitution by the nucleophile ends this reaction sequence. 

Pracejus also studied the tandem nucleophilic addition/diastereoselective protonation of optically pure (S)-phenylethylamine on phenylmethylketene [11], With the aim of synthesizing amino acids and their derivatives, Calmes and coworkers reinvestigated the reaction of prochiral ketenes (generated in situ from acid chorides in the presence of a tertiary amine) with (R)-pantolactonc, an a-hydroxylactone [12], The authors have shown that the diastereoselectivity is dependent on the base used. Particularly, triethylamine and quinuclidine afforded complementary results and the diasteromeric ratios observed with quinuclidine suggest that the high stereoselections could be observed in nucleophilic additions to prochiral ketenes in the presence of cinchona alkaloids. 

Despite the obvious potential of cinchona alkaloids as bifunctional chiral catalysts of the nucleophilic addition/enantioselective protonation on prochiral ketenes, no further contribution has appeared to date and only a few papers described this asymmetric reaction with other catalysts [13], When the reaction is carried out with soft nucleophiles, the catalyst, often a chiral tertiary amine, adding first on ketene, is covalently linked to the enolate during the protonation. Thus, we can expect an optimal control of the stereochemical outcome of the protonation. This seems perfectly well suited for cinchona analogues and we can therefore anticipate successful applications of these compounds for this reaction in the near future. 

The enantioselective nucleophilic addition of prochiral C=0 and C=N moieties to the corresponding saturated chiral products is one of the most important stereoselective transformations on both the laboratory and the industrial scale. Although, over the past few decades, remarkable scientific achievements have been made in these research areas by using a variety of transitional metal-based catalysts, the sensitivity of the reaction to moisture and oxygen, as well as the toxic metal contamination of the product, usually restrict its practical application. Thus, currently, there is much interest in chiral organocatalysts, as they tend to be less toxic and more environmental friendly than traditional metal-based catalysts [1]. They are usually robust and thus tolerate moisture and oxygen, so that they usually do not demand any special reaction conditions. 

The naturally occurring cinchona alkaloids (Figure 8.1), as described in other chapters of this book, have proven to be powerful organocatalysts in most major chemical reactions. They possess diverse chiral skeletons and are easily tunable for diverse catalytic reactions through different mechanisms, which make them privileged organocatalysts. The vast synthetic potential of cinchona alkaloids and their derivatives in the asymmetric nucleophilic addition of prochiral C=0 and C=N bonds has also been well demonstrated over the last decade. 

In this chapter, the current state of the art on the applications of cinchona alkaloids and their derivatives as chiral catalysts in the enantioselective nucleophilic addition of prochiral C=0 and C=N bonds is discussed. The schemes exemplified in this chapter demonstrate the indispensable role of cinchona alkaloids as catalysts in these important research areas. 

In addition to coupling reactions that occur with aryl and vinyl nucleophiles and electrophiles, coupling reactions that occur with sp -hybridized nucleophiles or electrophiles have been developed. These reactions include those that form tertiary and quaternary stereocenters from racemic or prochiral nucleophiles, as shown in Equation 19.4. Substitution reactions at propargylic and benzylic electropliiles have also been reported, and several groups have reported in recent years progress in metal-catalyzed substitutions of alkyl electrophiles, including enantioselective substitutions of aliphatic organic halides. 

The use of a prochiral nucleophile in allylic substitution reactions provides an additional opportunity for asymmetric indnction. Allyl acetate itself can be used as the electrophilic partner and the new stereogenic center is positioned further away from the allyl group (Scheme 28). 

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