Silylation alcohol protection

Some of the more common reagents for the conversion of carboxylic acids to trimethylsilyl esters are listed below. For additional methods that can be used to silylate acids, the section on alcohol protection should be consulted since many of the methods presented there are also applicable to carboxylic acids. Trimethylsilyl esters are cleaved in aqueous solutions. 

Silyl-derived protective groups are also used to mask the thiol function. A complete compilation is not given here since silyl derivatives are described in the section on alcohol protection. The formation and cleavage of silyl thioethers proceed analogously to simple alcohols. The Si—S bond is weaker than the Si—O bond, and therefore sulfur derivatives are more susceptible to hydrolysis. For the most part silyl ethers are rarely used to protect the thiol function because of their instability. Silyl ethers have been used for in situ protection of the — SH group during amide formation. ... 

A variety of alcohols, protected as t-butyldimethylsilyl (TBDMS) ether derivatives, can be rapidly regenerated to the corresponding hydroxy compounds on alumina surface using MW irradiation (Scheme 6.8) [42], This approach prevents the use of corrosive fluoride ions that are normally employed for cleaving the silyl protecting groups. 

During the past 2 years several research groups have published research that either uses or expands upon Crowe s acyclic cross-metathesis chemistry. The first reported application of this chemistry was in the synthesis of frans-disubstitut-ed homoallylic alcohols [30]. Cross-metathesis of styrenes with homoallylic silyl ethers 15, prepared via asymmetric allylboration and subsequent alcohol protection, gave the desired trans cross-metathesis products in moderate to good yields (Eq. 15). 

A number of oxidants are able to selectively transform silyl ethers derived from primary alcohols into aldehydes in the presence of silyl ethers derived from secondary alcohols. This allows to perform selective oxidations, whereby persilylation of polyols is followed by the selective oxidation of primary silyl ethers, resulting in the formation of aldehydes possessing secondary alcohols protected as silyl ethers. As expected, the mild transformation of primary silyl ethers into aldehydes is only possible with silyl ethers that are not exceedingly robust, such as TMS, TES and TBS ethers. 

An intermediate in the synthesis of laulimalide by Davidson8 illustrates the differential protection of alcohols. The starting materials 56 and 57 already have an alcohol protected as a TBDMS silyl ether and a diol protected as an acetal. The alcohol in 58 is protected as a p-methoxybenzyl ether and the acetal hydrolysed by acetal exchange to give the free diol 60. Selective protection of the primary alcohol by a bulky acyl group (pivaloyl, i-BuCO ) 61 allows silylation of the secondary alcohol with a TIPS group 62. Finally the pivaloyl group is selectively removed by DIBAL reduction to release just one free alcohol 63. 

Brook, M.A., Gottardo, C., Balduzzi, S. and Mohamed, M. (1997) The sisyl (tris (trimethylsilyl) silyl) group a fluoride resistant, photolabile alcohol protecting group. Tetrahedron Letters, 38, 6997-7000. 

If the heterocyclic systems such as uridine (150), thymidine (162), or the amine moieties contain alcoholic or phenolic hydroxyl groups, which are silylated and protected during this process of silylation-amination, these 0-silyl groups have to be removed after completion of the reaction. 

Epoxidadon of (Z)-vinyl sulfone, which is available from the Peterson olefination of (S)-O-pentylideneglyceraldehyde and phenyl trimethylsilylmethyl sulfone in three steps (40% overall yield), with f-BuOOH/t-BuOK in THE gives epoxy sulfone (eq 2). Deprotection of the ketal group and recrystallization affords an optically pure epoxy diol, which is then treated with sodium periodate followed by sodium borohydride to give an alcohol. Protection of the resulting alcohol as its silyl ether yields l/ ,25)-l-phenylsulfonyl-2- [ fcrf-butyldiphenyl)silyl]oxymethyl oxirane ). Its enantiomer is available in the same manner starting from / )-isopropylideneglyceraldehyde. ... 

A common OH protecting group is a silyl ether. A silyl ether has a new O-Si bond in place of the O-H bond of the alcohol. The most widely used silyl ether protecting group is the tert-butyldimethylsilyl ether. 

Hydroxyl protection. Employing ClSi(SiMe3)3 to silylate alcohols to form the highly stable sisyl ethers permits multiple chemical manipulations. However, the protecting group is easily removed photolytically in the presence of methanol. 

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