Prolines Mannich reactions

As already discussed for aldol and Robinson annulation reactions, proline is also a catalyst for enantioselective Mannich reactions. Proline effectively catalyzes the reactions of aldehydes such as 3-methylbutanal and hexanal with /V-arylimines of ethyl glyoxalate.196 These reactions show 2,3-syn selectivity, although the products with small alkyl groups tend to isomerize to the anti isomer. 

The first asymmetric enamine-catalyzed Mannich reactions were described by List in 2000 [208]. Paralleling the development of the enamine-catalyzed aldol reactions, the first asymmetric Mannich reactions were catalyzed by proline, and a range of cyclic and acyclic aliphatic ketones were used as donors (Schemes 24 and 25). In contrast to the aldol reaction, however, most Mannich reactions are syn selective. This is presumably due to the larger size of the imine acceptor, forcing the imine and the enamine to approach each other in a different manner than is possible with aldehyde acceptors (Scheme 23). 

The amine-catalyzed Mannich reaction has also been a subject of special reviews [243, 244]. In general, yields and enantioselectivities of proline-catalyzed Mannich reactions are very high. Initially, the reactions were restricted to imines bearing an aromatic A-substituent, such as the p-methoxyphenyl (PMP) group. This restriction considerably limited the usefulness of the protocol, because relatively... 

The scope of the enamine-catalyzed Mannich reaction can be considerably expanded by the use of preformed imines. These two-component Mannich reactions can be either syn selective [91, 94, 136, 220, 222, 230-233, 245, 248-258] (proline or its simple derivatives as catalysts) or anti selective [220, 259-268]... 

Enamine nucleophiles react readily with soft conjugated electrophiles, such as a, 3-unsaturated carbonyl, nitro, and sulfonyl compounds [20-22], Both aldehydes and ketones can be used as donors (Schemes 27 and 28). These Michael-type reactions are highly useful for the construction of carbon skeletons and often the yields are very high. The problem, however, is the enantioselectivity of the process. Unlike the aldol and Mannich reactions, where even simple proline catalyst can effectively direct the addition to the C = O or C = N bond by its carboxylic acid moiety, in conjugate additions the charge develops further away from the catalyst (Scheme 26) ... 

Highly enantioselective organocatalytic Mannich reactions of aldehydes and ketones have been extensively stndied with chiral secondary amine catalysts. These secondary amines employ chiral prolines, pyrrolidines, and imidazoles to generate a highly active enamine or imininm intermediate species [44], Cinchona alkaloids were previonsly shown to be active catalysts in malonate additions. The conjngate addition of malonates and other 1,3-dicarbonyls to imines, however, is relatively nnexplored. Snbseqnently, Schans et al. [45] employed the nse of Cinchona alkaloids in the conjngate addition of P-ketoesters to iV-acyl aldimines. Highly enantioselective mnltifnnctional secondary amine prodncts were obtained with 10 mol% cinchonine (Scheme 5). 

The work on organocatalytic aldol condensation continues unabated. In a recent advance, Armando Cdrdova of Stockholm University has found Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2004,43, 6528) that (S)-proline also will catalyze the Mannich reaction with high enantiomeric excess. Acyclic ketones also participate efficiently. 

List gave the first examples of the proline-catalyzed direct asymmetric three-component Mannich reactions of ketones, aldehydes, and amines (Scheme 14) [35], This was the first organocatalytic asymmetric Mannich reaction. These reactions do not require enolate equivalents or preformed imine equivalent. Both a-substituted and a-unsubstituted aldehydes gave the corresponding p-amino ketones 40 in good to excellent yield and with enantiomeric excesses up to 91%. The aldol addition and condensation products were observed as side products in this reaction. The application of their reaction to the highly enantioselective synthesis of 1,2-amino alcohols was also presented [36]. A plausible mechanism of the proline-catalyzed three-component Mannich reaction is shown in Fig. 2. The ketone reacts with proline to give an enamine 41. In a second pre-equilib-... 

It was reported that proline catalyzed the direct catalytic asymmetric Mannich reactions of hydroxyacetone, aldehydes, and aniline derivatives [(Eq. (10)] [40-44]. Not only aromatic aldehydes but also aliphatic aldehydes worked well in this reaction, and good to excellent enantioselectivity and moderate to excellent yields were observed. Mannich reactions of glyoxylate imines with aldehydes or ketones were also successfully performed [45,46]. 

A model compound 15 containing an indole (3-lactam moiety in chartellines was synthesized from the Mannich reaction of isatin imine with ketene silyl acetal, followed by (3-lactam formation through cyclization of the resulting (3-amino acid 14 (Scheme 5) [52]. L-Proline-catalyzed direct asymmetric Mannich reactions of... 

Scheme 39 Proline-catalyzed Mannich reaction furnishing spiro-P-lactams...

Barbas et al. [113] have published the asymmetric synthesis of spiro-p-lactams 171 (Scheme 39) using proline-catalyzed Mannich reaction with branched aldehyde donors. The Mannich reactions of a,a-disubstituted aldehydes 168 with... 

Most reports in this category deal with asymmetric processes. For example, classic Mannich reaction of unmodified ketones, aqueous formaldehyde, and aromatic amines produces a-aminomethylation of the ketones in >99% ee, using L-proline as catalyst. 24 Methyl ketones regioselectively reacted on the methylene carbon. The method is simple, using wet solvents in the presence of air. 

Multi-functional enantioselective catalysts for direct aldol and Mannich reactions have been prepared from (.S )-proline and 2,2/-diaminoBINAP.117... 

List and coworkers discovered the first efficient catalytic asymmetric three-component Mannich reaction. In this proline-catalyzed Mannich reaction between ketones, aldehydes, and amines (typically p-anisidine, 6), Mannich products are formed in up to >99% ee and up to 96% yield (Scheme 9.3) [4],... 

An important feature of this reaction is that in contrast to most other catalytic asymmetric Mannich reactions, a-unbranched aldehydes are efficient electrophiles in the proline-catalyzed reaction. In addition, with hydroxy acetone as a donor, the corresponding syn-l, 2-aminoalcohols are furnished with high chemo-, regio-, diastereo-, and enantioselectivities. The produced ketones 14 can be further converted to 4-substituted 2-oxazolidinones 17 and /i-aminoalcohol derivatives 18 in a straightforward manner via Baeyer-Villiger oxidation (Scheme 9.4) [5]. 

The proline-catalyzed three-component Mannich reaction is proposed to proceed through the reaction of enamine a, formed by the reaction of the ketone with pro-... 

Scheme 9.3. The first proline-catalyzed Mannich reaction.

Scheme 9.6. Proline-catalyzed Mannich reaction under high pressure induced by water freezing.

An asymmetric Mannich reaction was recently successfully achieved by means of different types of catalyst, metal- and organocatalysts [20, 21]. With the latter the reaction can be performed asymmetrically by use of L-proline and related compounds as chiral organocatalyst [22-35]. A key advantage of the proline-catalyzed route is that unmodified ketones are used as donors, which is synthetically highly attractive. In contrast, many other asymmetric catalytic methods require preformed enolate equivalents as nucleophile. 

Very recently, the List group applied this proline-catalyzed Mannich reaction efficiently in multi-step syntheses of several a-amino acid derivatives, such as protected 1,2-amino alcohol derivatives and oxazolidin-2-ones [25],... 

Under the reaction conditions used in the one-pot Mannich reaction described above, L-proline (S)-27 was clearly found to be the preferred organocatalyst. As is apparent from Scheme 5.14, the best yield (90%) and enantioselectivity (93% ee) were obtained by use of this organocatalyst [23]. The suitability of all other organo-catalysts used in this one-pot reaction, using 3-methylbutanal as aldehyde, was poor. Remarkably lower yields and poor enantioselectivity were obtained when the thiazolidine catalyst (S)-31 and other pyrrolidine-based organocatalysts were used. 

Interestingly, however, another comparative study [24] revealed the capacity of other amines related to L-proline (S)-27 to function as organocatalysts in the Mannich reaction under modified reaction conditions [24]. As shown for a model reaction using preformed imines derived from o-anisidine, the thiazolidine carboxylic... 

It is worthy of note that - similarly to the proline catalyzed aldol reaction - the Mannich reaction can also be extended to an enantio- and diastereoselective process in which two stereogenic centers are formed in one step, although using non-chiral starting materials (Scheme 5.16) [22, 23, 26, 27, 28]. In these reactions substituted acetone or acetaldehyde derivatives, rather than acetone, serve as donor. In contrast with the anti diastereoselectivity observed for the aldol reaction (Section 6.2.1.2), the proline-catalyzed Mannich reaction furnishes products with syn diastereoselectivity [23]. A proline-derived catalyst, which led to the formation of anti Mannich products has, however, been found by the Barbas group [29]. 

Use of hydroxyacetone as donor in the asymmetric Mannich reaction led to the formation of optically active syn /i-amino alcohols bearing two stereogenic centers [22, 23], In the presence of 35 mol% L-proline as organocatalyst several types of syn / -amino alcohol syn-35 were successfully synthesized with enantioselectivity up to 99% ee and high diastereomeric ratio. For example, a high yield of 92%, a diaster-eomeric ratio of 20 1, and enantioselectivity >99% ee were observed by List et al. for formation of the syn yfi-amino alcohol 35a (Scheme 5.17) [23]. In addition to hydroxyacetone the methylated derivative methoxyacetone was also applied successfully in this reaction (93% yield, d.r. > 39 1, >99% ee). 

The Mannich reaction using PMP-protected a-imino glyoxylate, 33, can also be conducted enantio- and diastereoselectively when using substituted acetone derivatives, as has been successfully shown by the Barbas group [26-28]. Several types of ketone are accepted as donors in the presence of 20 mol% of L-proline as catalyst [26]. This type of Mannich reaction provides keto-functionalized syn a-amino acid... 

Extension of this reaction toward a one-pot asymmetric Mannich-hydrocyanation reaction sequence was also reported by the Barbas group [29]. In this one-pot two-step process proline-catalyzed asymmetric Mannich reaction of unmodified aldehydes with the a-imino glyoxylate was performed first, then diastereoselective in situ cyanation. The resulting /i-cyanohydroxymethyl a-amino acids were obtained with high enantioselectivity (93-99% ee) [29]. Another one-pot two-step reaction developed by Barbas et al. is the Mannich-allylation reaction in which the proline-catalyzed Mannich reaction is combined with an indium-promoted allylation [30], This one-pot synthesis was conducted in aqueous media and is the first example of a direct organocatalytic Mannich reaction in aqueous media [28, 30]. 

Proline-catalyzed Mannich Reaction Process Development and Optimization... 

Despite their high synthetic potential, when L-proline-catalyzed reactions are evaluated, catalytic amounts in the range 20 to 35% and use of excess ketone (usually 20% v/v) represent reaction parameters to be optimized. Experimental studies addressing this issue have been conducted and impressive solutions were found by the List group [23], As a model reaction the Mannich synthesis using p-nitro-... 

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