Proline-based catalysts aldol reactions

The enantioselective conjugate addition of tetrahydropyran-4-ones and their thio analogues to nitrostyrene is achieved using proline-based catalysts <06JA9624>, as is the asymmetric aldol reaction of these substrates with benzaldehydes (Scheme 27) <06JOC8198>. 

In 2008 Brimble and coworkers examined the effect of a-substitution in proline-based catalysts for the asymmetric aldol addition of acetone to aromatic aldehydes. In the benchmark aldol reaction between acetone and p-nitro-benzaldehyde they observed a remarkable improvement of stereoselectivity using (5 )-a-methyl-tetrazole 9, albeit with longer reaction times caused by the a-geminal disubstitution. Surprisingly 7a afforded a completely racemic product (Scheme 11.7). Using 9 the scope of this reaction was extended efficiently to several other aromatic aldehydes with excellent enantioselectivities (enantiomeric excess — 70-91%). 

Syn-Aldols. The synthesis of sy/j-aldols via the cross-aldol reaction is not an easy task since the sy -selectivity requires the reaction to proceed through the (Z)-enamine (Scheme 3.24). All proline-based catalysts tend to give ( )-enamines as... 

The direct asymmetric aldol reaction is a powerful tool for C-C bond formation. Enamine-iminium catalysis is the most developed, and it is nicely complimented by other modes of activation that rely on hydrogen bond formation. Mechanistically, all proline-based catalysts activate donors through the formation of an enamine intermediate. Other activation modes rely on enolate formation, ionic interactions, or hydrogen bond formation, though the mechanism is not always known. 

Since the discovery of proline-catalyzed enantioselective aldol reactions, an extensive research program to explore chiral secondary amine catalysts has been pursued. Several polymer-supported chiral amines have been synthesized for aldol, Mannich, and related reactions. Polystyrene is a popular solid phase for use in place of silica gel in the proline-based organocatalysis. In contrast, silica gel displays a slightly acidic character and has a hydrogen-bond donor or acceptor, which may change the catalytic activity and chiral space of the organocatalyst. Flow enantioselective aldol [158-161], Mannich [162], Michael [163], and related reactions... 

Reaction progress kinetic analysis offers a reliable alternative method to assess the stability of the active catalyst concentration, again based on our concept of excess [e]. In contrast to our different excess experiments described above, now we carry out a set of experiments at the same value of excess [ej. We consider again the proline-mediated aldol reaction shown in Scheme 50.1. Under reaction conditions, the proline catalyst can undergo side reactions with aldehydes to form inactive cyclic species called oxazolidinones, effectively decreasing the active catalyst concentration. It has recently been shown that addition of small amounts of water to the reaction mixture can eliminate this catalyst deactivation. Reaction progress kinetic analysis of experiments carried out at the same excess [e] can be used to confirm the deactivation of proline in the absence of added water as well to demonstrate that the proline concentration remains constant when water is present. 

Organic-Base Catalyzed. Asymmetric direct aldol reactions have received considerable attention recently (Eq. 8.98).251 Direct asymmetric catalytic aldol reactions have been successfully performed using aldehydes and unmodified ketones together with chiral cyclic secondary amines as catalysts.252 L-proline and 5,5-dimethylthiazolidinium-4-carboxylate (DMTC) were found to be the most powerful amino acid catalysts for the reaction of both acyclic and cyclic ketones as aldol donors with aromatic and aliphatic aldehydes to afford the corresponding... 

The formation of covalent substrate-catalyst adducts might occur, e.g., by single-step Lewis-acid-Lewis-base interaction or by multi-step reactions such as the formation of enamines from aldehydes and secondary amines. The catalysis of aldol reactions by formation of the donor enamine is a striking example of common mechanisms in enzymatic catalysis and organocatalysis - in class-I aldolases lysine provides the catalytically active amine group whereas typical organocatalysts for this purpose are secondary amines, the most simple being proline (Scheme 2.2). 

The use of different acid functionalities on pyrrolidine-derived catalysts has improved the reaction rate of some aldol reactions. For example, pyrrolidine-based tetrazole derivative 9 (Fig. 2.2) catalyzed many aldol reactions with rates faster than proline, with similar stereocontrol [16, 18b, 24, 55]. The faster reaction rates with tetrazole derivative 9 in DM SO as compared with proline were attributed to the lower pKa of the tetrazole moiety as compared to the carboxylic acid group in DMSO (tetrazole pKa(DMSO) 8.2 acetic acid pKa(DMSO) 12.3) [55, 56]. In addition, tetrazole derivative 9 is more soluble than proline in many organic solvents. A higher actual concentration of the catalyst in the solution phase of a reaction mix-... 

Surprisingly, little follow-up work on this idea of small molecule asymmetric catalysis appeared for the next 25 years. In the late 1980s, Agami reported the asymmetric intramolecular aldol reaction of acyclic diketones with (S)-proline as the catalyst. It was not nntil the twenty-first centnry, however, when this notion of organocatalysts became fnlly exploited. List and Barbas ° pioneered enam-ines as catalysts for aldol and Mannich and related reactions. MacMillan has developed a variety of imininm-based catalysts prodncing large asymmetric indnction for Diels-Alder chemistry, Friedel-Crafts alkylations, Mnkaiyama-Michael and cyclopropanation " reactions. 

Onium ion-tagged proline catalysts 7 and 8 in [bmini][Tf2N] proved to be an excellent catalytic system for the direct asymmetric aldol reaction. The catalytic protocol developed makes use of use of a 6-fold lower amount of catalyst with respect to the proceeding reports based on the use of proline 12 and affords greater chemical yields and higher enantioselectivity. In particular, 8 in [bmim][Tf2N] gave better results compared both to the use of proline in the same IL and of 7 in DMSO. ... 

In 2005, Beilis and Kokotos synthesized a series of proline-based PPI chiral dendrimers possessing up to 126 proline end groups (Figure 4.38) [109]. These dendrimers were evaluated as the catalyst for asymmetric aldol reactions (Scheme 4.30). Using 6.5mol% of the second-generahon dendrimer catalyst, the products of the aldol reachons were obtained in moderate yields and enanhoselectivities (up... 

Commercially available Amberlite IR-120 (H -form) was used as an acid catalyst this resin is a divinylbenzene-crosslinked partially sulfonated gel-type polystyrene. As a base catalyst, PEG-PS resin-supported proline was employed. The reaction was performed in water-acetone-tetrahydrofuran (1 1 1 v/v/v) at room temperature in the presence of 20 mol. % of resin-supported proline and Amberlite. After 20 h, the reaction mixture contained the starting 4-nitro-benzaldehyde dimethyl acetal, 4-nitrobenzaldehyde and the corresponding aldol product with acetone in a ratio of 4 9 87. This means that both the... 

Aldol reaction with L-proline as catalyst has been extended to a-ketols thereby generating anti-diols. Transition state 48 is consistent with the results of aldol condensation catalyzed by Et2Zn-Ph,PS in the presence of a bisprolinol. a-Amino acid derived imi-dazolidinones serve as chiral auxiliaries in the same manner as the corresponding oxa-zolidinones. In employing 4-f-butylthiazolidin-2-thione, the presence of one or two equiv of a base leads to syn products of opposite enantiomeric series. 

The direct asymmetric aldol reaction has also received much recent attention. High ees have been obtained using lanthanide- or zinc-based bifunctional catalysts bearing both Lewis acidic and Lewis basic sites. The most significant recent advance in this area is the discovery that cheap, readily available organic catalysts such as L-proline are also effective. 

Type I aldolases activate the aldol donor by the formation of enamines with active site amino acids and an alternate approach to the direct catalytic asymmetric aldol reaction centres on mimicking this process using proline-based organocatalysts. In fact, one of the earliest examples of asymmetric catalysis uses (S)-profine (7.66) as a catalyst for the intramolecular aldol reaction (the Hajos-Eder-Saeur-Wiechert reaction).As an example the achiral triketone (7.67) cyclises to give the aldol product (7.68) with good enantioselectivity. 

Ellman and coworkers have shown that chiral sulfinate 14 can catalyse asymmetric aldol reactions of acetone, whereas proline itself gave poor results. However, more active and selective catalysts are prolinamides with general structure 16 containing two or more stereocentres in the molecule, and based on ot-alkylbenzylamines ISa," chiral (3-amino alcohols (16b-d, 16e-f, axially chiral amino hydroxyl-2,2 -binaphtyl amide 16i, ... 

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