Stereochemistry stereogenic atoms

A chirality center (or chiral center ) is one type of stereogenic center or, simply, stereocenter. A stereogenic atom is defined as one bonded to several groups of such nature that interchange of any two groups produces a stereoisomer. See E. L. Eliel and S. H. Wilen, Stereochemistry of Organic Compounds, Wiley-Interscience New York, 1994, p. 53. 

Stereoinversion Stereoinversion can be achieved either using a chemoenzymatic approach or a purely biocatalytic method. As an example of the former case, deracemization of secondary alcohols via enzymatic hydrolysis of their acetates may be mentioned. Thus, after the first step, kinetic resolution of a racemate, the enantiomeric alcohol resulting from hydrolysis of the fast reacting enantiomer of the substrate is chemically transformed into an activated ester, for example, by mesylation. The mixture of both esters is then subjected to basic hydrolysis. Each hydrolysis proceeds with different stereochemistry - the acetate is hydrolyzed with retention of configuration due to the attack of the hydroxy anion on the carbonyl carbon, and the mesylate - with inversion as a result of the attack of the hydroxy anion on the stereogenic carbon atom. As a result, a single enantiomer of the secondary alcohol is obtained (Scheme 5.12) [8, 50a]. 

This chapter, however, does not deal with above-mentioned reactions of sulfoxides. Rather it is limited to asymmetric synthesis using a-sulfinyl carbanions and -unsaturated sulfoxides, specifically in which the stereogenic sulfoxide sulfur atom is enantiomerically pure. Therefore reactions of racemic sulfoxides are for the most part excluded from this review. For more general discussions, the reader is referred to other chapters in this volume and to other reviews on the chemistry of sulfoxides. Especially useful are the reviews by Johnson and Sharp and by Mislow in the late 1960s and by Oae and by Nudelman as well as a book by Block . A review by Cinquini, Cozzi and Montanari" through mid-1983 summarizes the chemistry and stereochemistry of optically active sulfoxides. This chapter emphasizes results reported from 1984 through mid-1986. 

It is the purpose of this chapter to summarize what is currently known about the stereochemistry and conformation of organogermanium, tin and lead compounds. Coverage is selective rather than exhaustive. The first section deals with compounds in which substitution by four different groups causes the metal atom to be stereogenic. We have limited our discussion to those cases in which at least three of the four substituents are alkyl or aryl. In this section we also briefly discuss pentacoordinated triorgano halostannanes. 

As shown in Scheme 6, the addition forms two stereogenic centers via the favorable chair-like transition state. The diastereoselective construction of stereogenic centers has been studied extensively by Marek and Normantla. For the control of stereochemistry, one should think about the configuration of allylzinc compounds and the alkenyl metal. Interestingly, a comparison of four possible transition states (Scheme 7) by calculation concludes that Z-crotylzinc bromide is the most favorable transition state. This means that it is not necessary to think about the stereochemistry of crotylzinc bromide as its configuration changes via 1,3-transposition of the zinc atom (Scheme 6)12. 

Only the stereochemistry at the a-carbon atom is affected by enolization. The other stereogenic center in menthone (the one bearing the methyl group) is not affected. 

The zirconoxycarbene complexes undergo a variety of typical Fischer-carbene reactions. Typically, unsaturated nine-membered zirconoxycarbene complexes such as 103 are readily deprotonated in the a-position to the carbene carbon atom. The stereochemistry of the subsequent alkylation reaction is very efficiently controlled by the remote stereogenic center at C2, resulting in an effective 1,5-asymmetric induction113 (Scheme 34, Fig. 10). 

What can be said about the stereochemistry of SN1 reactions In the carbenium ion intermediates R1 R2R3C , the positively charged C atom has a trigonal planar geometry (cf. Figure 1.3). These intermediates are therefore achiral, if the substituents R1 themselves do not contain stereogenic centers. 

If you see a substitution reaction at a stereogenic saturated carbon atom that goes with retention of stereochemistry, lookfor neighbouring group participation ... 

The compounds in this report usually contain a chirotopic stereogenic carbon ring atom, and were prepared as racemic mixtures. Hypothetically, if the BC conformation prevails, then one can imagine two enantiomers in solution (reference, 5)-BC 9 and (retro-inverso,R)-BC 9-bar. Since this stereochemistry is complicated, it will be helpful if we refer to the descriptor for only one enantiomer. Therefore, in an arbitrary but consistent manner in this report, we will always define the reference ring chirality and label tropicity to be that of the (S)-enantiomer. For example, suppose a racemic mixture of (reference,S)-BC 9 and (retro-inverso,R)-BC 9-bar affords crystals belonging to an achiral space group so that both enantiomers in the racemic compound are present in the crystal lattice. Let us further suppose that dissolution of these crystals will give the same solution-state conformation. We will write that the solid-state (reference,S)-BC 9... 

Radical reactions have some stereochemical features that can be compared directly with their ionic counterparts, especially when the radical centre is adjacent to an existing stereogenic centre. The tris(trimethylsilyl)silyl radical adds to chiral ketones like 3-phenyl-2-butanone 7.59 to give a radical 7.60 flanked by a stereogenic centre. The hydrogen atom abstraction from a thiol, determines the relative stereochemistry, and the products 7.61 and 7.62 are analogous to those from the hydride reduction of the ketone. They are formed in the same sense, and the stereochemistry is explained by the Felkin-Anh picture 7.60. 

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