Regioselectivity nitrile oxide cycloadditions

Several strategies have been proposed to improve the regioselectivity of nitrile oxide cycloaddition. Kanemasa and coworkers have reported high-rate acceleration and regioselectivity in nitrile oxide cycloadditions to the magnesium alkoxides of allylic and homoallylic alcohols (Eq. 8.64)."... 

An interesting antibody-catalyzed intermolecular asymmetric 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction between 4-acetamidobenzonitrile N-oxide and N,N-dimethylacrylamide generating the corresponding 5-acylisoxazoline was observed (216). Reversed regioselectivity of nitrile oxide cycloaddition to a terminal alkene was reported in the reaction of 4-A rt-butylbenzonitrile oxide with 6A-acrylamido-6A-deoxy-p-cyclodextrin in aqueous solution, leading to the formation of the 4-substituted isoxazoline, in contrast to the predominance of the 5-substituted regioisomer from reactions of monosubstituted alkenes (217). 

Three novel stereo- and regioselective schemes for the total synthesis of (+ )-brefeldin A 440 have been accomplished. Each of them exploit intermolec-ular nitrile oxide cycloaddition for constructing the open chain and introducing substituents, but differ in subsequent stages. The first (480) and the second (481) use intramolecular cycloaddition for the macrocycle closure. However, in the second scheme INOC is followed by C=C bond cis-trans-isomerization. In the third scheme (481) intermolecular cycloaddition is followed by ring closing metathesis as the key step. 

Many aspects of intramolecular nitrile oxide cycloadditions are similar to those of the intermolecular ones. Due to the proximity of the reacting groups, however, there are also several items that differ significantly. While HOMO-LUMO interactions and steric effects direct the intermolecular nitrile oxide cycloaddition to 1-alkenes to produce 5-substituted isoxazolines, the intramolecular cases often show a different behavior. With most of them, regioselectivity is determined by geometric constraints and cycloadditions occur in the exo mode to furnish the annulated bicycle (Scheme 6.42). 

Although monosubstituted alkenes usually show relatively high reactivity in nitrile oxide cycloadditions to give 5-substituted-2-isoxazolines in a regioselective... 

On the other hand, the regioselectivity is not seriously affected by the choice of reaction solvent. Even when THF is used in the reaction with crotyl alcohol, the 2-isoxazoline-5-methanol regioisomer is the only product produced (Scheme 11.31). The reaction rate is decreased in THF, but is still much faster than that in the absence of magnesium ions. Kanemasa et al. (130) concluded that the magnesium-mediated nitrile oxide cycloadditions to allylic alcohols compete with the thermal... 

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