Stereoisomers reactivity

Reactions such as catalytic hydrogenation that take place at the less hindered side of a reactant are common m organic chemistry and are examples of steric effects on reactivity Previously we saw steric effects on structure and stability m the case of CIS and trans stereoisomers and m the preference for equatorial substituents on cyclo hexane rings... 

By application of Cram s rule or a more recent model on the reactivity of a-chiral aldehydes or ketones, a prediction can be made, which stereoisomer will be formed predominantly, if the reaction generates an additional chiral center. 

Percentage cross-reactivity is defined as the ratio of the IC50 of the testing substance (ractopamine stereoisomer or metabohte) and the IC50 of the ractopamine racemic mixture, expressed as a percentage. 

The incorporation of silyl substituents not only provides for specific reaction products but can also improve the effectiveness of polyene cyclization. For example, although cyclization of 2a gave a mixture containing at least 17 products, the allylic silane 2b gave a 79% yield of a 1 1 mixture of stereoisomers.13 This is presumably due to the enhanced reactivity and selectivity of the allylic silane. 

The reaction of metabolically generated polycyclic aromatic diol epoxides with DNA Ua vivo is believed to be an important and critical event in chemical carcinogenesis Cl,2). In recent years, much attention has been devoted to studies of diol epoxide-nucleic acid interactions in aqueous model systems. The most widely studied reactive intermediate is benzo(a)pyrene-7,8-diol-9,10-epoxide (BaPDE), which is the ultimate biologically active metabolite of the well known and ubiquitous environmental pollutant benzo(a)pyrene. There are four different stereoisomers of BaPDE (Figure 1) which are characterized by differences in biological activities, and reactivities with DNA (2-4). In this review, emphasis is placed on studies of reaction mechanisms of BPDE and related compounds with DNA, and the structures of the adducts formed. 

The isomerization barrier of 15.0-20.0 kcal mol-1 (AG ) can be considered to be large enough to allow isolation and characterization of bis(q3-<2 /),A- nms-dodecatrienediyl-Nin stereoisomers of 7b41 as reactive intermediates in the stoichiometric cyclotrimerization process. Furthermore, the trans orientation of the two allylic groups gives rise to an insurmountable barrier for reductive elimination for these cases, which prevents these species from readily leaving the thermodynamic sink via a facile reductive elimination. The isolated intermediates clearly constitute dead-end... 

Several accounts have described (Z)-dehydroamino acid esters as being less active than the corresponding (F)-isomer [59c, 143-145]. In fact, Bruneau and Demonchaux reported that when reduction of an (E/Z)-mixture of 73 with Rh-Et-DuPhos in THF was not complete, only unreacted (Z)-73 was detected. These findings conflict, however, with results obtained in MeOH [56 d], where the ligand structure was also found to be significant to the relative reactivity of each stereoisomer. As for a-dehydroamino acid derivatives, preformed metal-diphosphine complexes generally perform in superior fashion to those prepared in situ [56d]. 

The dissection of a molecular model into those components that are deemed to be essential for the understanding of the stereochemistry of the whole may be termed factorization (9). The first and most important step toward this goal was taken by van t Hoff and Le Bel when they introduced the concept of the asymmetric carbon atom (10a, 1 la) and discussed the achiral stereoisomerism of the olefins (10b,lib). We need such factorization not only for the enumeration and description of possible stereoisomers, important as these objectives are, but also, as we have seen, for the understanding of stereoselective reactions. More subtle differences also giving rise to differences in reactivity with chiral reagents, but referable to products of a different factorization, will be taken up in Sect. IX. 

Hulbert published a landmark paper [104], in which he reasoned that diol epoxides should react with nucleophiles as carbonium ions. Although bay-region diol epoxides were not specifically considered in this hypothesis paper, the essence of the argument was that diol epoxides with yyn-con figuration (see Fig. 10.13) should be more reactive than their anti-stereoisomers since... 

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