Pyrrolidines annulation

The basic fraction of the ethanolic leaf extract of the Malaysian plant Kopsia griffithii exhibits a strong antileishmania activity. One of the two novel alkaloids isolated from this plant in 1998 was the indolizidino[8,7-fo]indole harmicine [17]. Synthetic approaches to harmicine became attractive owing to its pharmacological potential [18,19]. We applied our three-step pyrrolidine annulation strategy to the synthesis of harmicine (Scheme 15.5) [19]. 

Homoallylic amines containing an allylic hydroxy group rearrange in the presence of an aldehyde and an acid catalyst to yield 3-acylpyrrolidines. If the starting amino alcohol is cyclic, this transformation provides a pyrrolidine-annulated product, in which the initial ring is expanded by one member. The mechanism has been proposed to proceed via a tandem cationic aza-Cope rearrangement/Mannich cyclization1134. 

This example of a ring-enlarging pyrrolidine annulation takes advantage of conformational constraints inherent to a medium-size ring intermediate. 

Bowman and coworkers described another nice approach in this field combining one anionic and two radical cyclization steps (Scheme 2.160) [368], Thus, they were able to construct differenttypes of nitrogen-containing heterocycles such as annulated pyrrolidines 2-724 and spiropyrrolidines 2-726 as well as indolizidines as 2-729. 

Scheme 18 Preparation of pyrrolidine derivatives via annulation with iodomethylaziridine derivatives...

Radical [3 + 2] annulation involving N-allyl-N-chlorotosylamidc provides a route to pyrrolidine derivatives (Scheme 21) [56]. 

Pyrrolines and pyrroles can be readily prepared from the rearrangement of a-aminoallenes. Optically enriched a-aminoallene 137 is rearranged to pyrroline 138 by catalytic silver nitrate (Eq. 13.45) [53], The yield of the reaction is high and the cyclization occurs with high levels of asymmetry transfer. Annulated 3-pyrroline 140 is the product of rearrangement of allenyl pyrrolidine 139 (Eq. 13.46) [53]. 

A variant of the Robinson annulation, where bulky amines such as pyrrolidine are used, making the conjugate addition to methyl vinyl ketone (MVK) take place at the less hindered side of two possible enamines. 

An example of an intriguing ring-size dependency of the reaction pathway is that of the cyclization of vinylogous urethanes 328a-c with cinnamaldehyde (08T883). Pyrrolidine- and azepane-based esters 328a and c, respectively, give via aza-[3+3] annulation the expected... 

Another approach leading to pyrrolidine 210 via [3 + 2] cycloaddition is the reaction of A-protected a-amino aldehydes with allylsilanes in the presence of a catalytic amount of BF3 OEt2 (equation 172). No 1,2-silyl group migration occurs in these annulation processes313. 

A synthesis of 277-pyrroles has been reported, relying on reductive annulation of 7-nitroketones (Scheme 1), as exemplified by the transformation of the substrate 7 into the pyrrolidine 8, which was eventually dehydrogenated to the 277-pyrrole 9 by treatment with 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyano-l,4-benzoquinone (DDQ) <2003TL3701>. 

The anion derived from furobenzopyrandione 28 reacts with Michael acceptors regiospecifically to yield xanthones and various annulated derivatives <03OL3753> and intramolecular trapping of the anion by a carbamate side-chain leads to spiro- pyrrolidine and piperidine 9-xanthene derivatives <03TL9291>. 

Annulation to carbonyl functions has also been achieved with Trost s bifunctional reagents. Whereas the parent silyl acetate (97) yields only simple alkylation products with aldehydes under normal conditions, addition of only a few mole % of trimethyltin acetate to the reaction mixture results in facile formation of methylenetetrahydrofurans Furthermore, excellent diastereoselectivity is observed in the cycloaddition to a galactose-derived aldehyde (125) (equation 136). The tin acetate co-catalyst also promotes addition to relatively unreactive ketone carbonyls, such as in the case of benzofuran (126) and the acetylenic ketone (127) (equations 137, 138). It is remarkable that even the sterically hindered enone (128) reacts preferentially at the ketone function (equation 139). A tributyltin analog (129) of (97) has been used in the stepwise formation of a methylenetetrahydrofuran from aldehydes. Similarly, pyrrolidines can be prepared from the corresponding imines in two steps via a Lewis acid-catalyzed 1,2-addition of the tin reagent, which is then followed by a Pd-catalyzed cyclization (equation 140). Direct formation of pyrrolidine from the imine is possible if one uses a mesylate analog of (97) and a nickel(O) catalyst (equation 141). ... 

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