Stereoselectivity Strecker synthesis

An efficient stereoselective Strecker synthesis of phenylglycine has been achieved using the tert-butyl ester tm-leucine as the chiral auxiliary. Its benzaldimine reacts with hydrogen cyanide in hexane at — 23 °C to furnish the ( )-diastereomer with the excellent diastereoselectivity of >98 254. 

Kunz, H, Sager, W, Schanzenbach, D, Decker, M, Carbohydrates as chiral templates stereoselective Strecker synthesis of D-a-amino nitriles and acids using 0-pivaloylated D-galactosylamine as the auxiliary, Liebigs Ann. Chem., 649-654, 1991. 

Stereoselective Strecker Synthesis Using Glycosylamines as the Chiral Templates ... 

Stereoselective Strecker reactions with galactosylamine 1 can also be achieved with sodium cyanide and acetic acid in 2-propanol. The reactions, however, proceed slowly and with a lower stereoselectivity, giving diastereomeric ratios of the products between 3 1 and 7 1. The scope of the method can be extended to other glycosylamines, e.g., 2,3,4-tri-O-pivaloyl-a-D-arabinosyl-amine which allows the stereoselective synthesis of (A )-amino nitriles61,62. 

The ease of the Strecker synthesis from aldehydes makes a-aminonitriles an attractive and important route to a-amino acids. Fortunately, the microbial world offers a number of enzymes for carrying out the necessary conversions, some of them highly stereoselective. Nitrilases catalyze a direct conversion of nitrile into carboxylic acid (Equation (11)), whereas nitrile hydratases catalyze formation of the amide, which can then be hydrolyzed to the carboxylic acid in a second step (Equation (12)). In a recent survey, with a view to bioremediation and synthesis, Brady et al have surveyed the ability of a wide range of bacteria and yeasts to grow on diverse nitriles and amides as sole nitrogen source. This provides a rich source of information on enzymes for future application. 

DSM developed a slightly different approach towards enantiopure amino acids. Instead of performing the Strecker synthesis with a complete hydrolysis of the nitrile to the acid it is stopped at the amide stage. Then a stereoselective amino acid amidase from Pseudomonas putida is employed for the enantioselective second hydrolysis step [83], yielding enantiopure amino acids [34, 77, 78]. Although the reaction is a kinetic resolution and thus the yields are never higher than 50% this approach is overall more efficient. No acylation step is necessary and the atom efficiency is thus much higher. A drawback is that the racemisation has to be performed via the Schiff s base of the D-amide (Scheme 6.23). 

Strecker synthesis attempts have been made to optimize the reaction conditions [4b] and to achieve stereoselective syntheses [4c-hJ. Usually chiral amines such as 7 have been employed, which can, for example, on reaction with 6 be converted to the thiophene-substituted amino acid 8 [4c]. 

In Ugi s four-component condensation, imine formation from an aldehyde 1 and an amine 2 is likewise the initiating step [5, 6] a carboxylic acid 9 and an isonitrile 10 are the other reaction components, which finally yield the bisamide 11. Both for this reaction and the Strecker synthesis, the galactosylamine 12 is particularly suitable for carrying out a stereoselective reaction (synthesis of 13) [4d-e, 5f. With an aminoglucopyranose as a chiral auxiliary, the stereoselectivity of the reaction can be further increased [5b]. Amino acids as condensation components yield particularly impressive results. For instance, the imino-... 

The method is very useful for the synthesis of physiologically interesting a-mcthylamino acids, e.g., methyl dopa from the 3,4-dimethoxybenzyl derivative. The excellent stereoselection achieved in the process, however, is caused by the preferential crystallization of one pure diastereomerfrom the equilibrium mixture formed in the reversible Strecker reaction. Thus, the pure diastcrcomers with benzyl substituents, dissolved in chloroform or acetonitrile, give equilibrium mixtures of both diastereomers in a ratio of about 7 347. This effect has also been found for other s-methylamino nitriles of quite different structure49. If the amino nitrile (R1 = Bn) is synthesized in acetonitrile solution, the diastereomers do not crystallize while immediate hydrolysis indicates a ratio of the diastereomeric amino nitriles (S)I(R) of 86 1447. 

An enantioselective Strecker reaction involving Brpnsted acid catalysis uses a BINOL-phosphoric acid, which affords ees up to 93% in hydrocyanations of aromatic aldimines in toluene at -40 °C.67 The asymmetric induction processes in the stereoselective synthesis of both optically active cis- and trans-l-amino-2-hydroxycyclohexane-l -carboxylic acids via a Strecker reaction have been investigated.68 A 2-pyridylsulfonyl group has been used as a novel stereocontroller in a Strecker-type process ees up to 94% are suggested to arise from the ability of a chiral Lewis acid to coordinate to one of the sulfonyl (g)... 

Aldehydes, ketones, and acetals react with allyltrimethylsilane in the presence of a catalytic amount of BiX3 (X = C1, Br, OTf) to give homoallyl alcohols or homoallyl alkyl ethers (Equation (52)).91-93 The BiX3-catalyzed allylation of aldehydes and sequential intramolecular etherification of the resulting homoallylic silyl ethers are involved in the stereoselective synthesis of polysubstituted tetrahydropyrans (Equation (53)).94,95 Similarly, these Lewis acids catalyze the cyanation of aldehydes and ketones with cyanotrimethylsilane. When a chiral bismuth(m) catalyst is used in the cyanation, cyanohydrines are obtained in up to 72% ee (Equation (54)). a-Aminonitriles are prepared directly from aldehydes, amines, and cyanotrimethysilane by the BiCl3-catalyzed Strecker-type reaction. 

The amino acid synthesis from Strecker has been known since 1850 [25]. Stereoselective versions of this synthesis start with chiral amines, which are condensed with carbonyl compounds to form imines. Addition of hydrogen cyanide and subsequent hydrolysis of the amino nitriles yields the amino acids. When ketones are used for the condensation, a-alkylated amino acids are obtained in high yields and optical purities... 

Wang, H., Zhao, X., Li, Y. and Lu, L. (2006) Solvent-controlled asymmetric Strecker reaction stereoselective synthesis of a-trifluoromethylated a-amino acids. Org. Lett., 8, 1379-1381. 

Chiral amines have been transformed into chiral imines RCH=NG, which are usually in equilibrium with the tautomeric enamines. These enamines undergo asymmetric alkylations, and the best results are often obtained with ethers 1.58 or with valine derivatives 1.59 (R = i-Pr, R = tert-Bu) [169, 173,253] in the presence of bases. Enamines, lithioenamines and zinc enamines derived from imines are very potent Michael donors that often participate in highly stereoselective reactions [161, 162, 169, 173, 254, 257, 260, 262, 267], Chiral imines can suffer very selective addition reactions of organomagnesium reagents [139, 253, 254] and allyl-metals [154, 258]. They also suffer stereoselective Ti-catalyzed silylcyanation [268], Strecker reaction [266], and [2+2] or [4+2] cydoadditions [131, 256, 263], When the reaction produces an imine product, the chiral auxiliary is recovered after acidic hydrolysis. However, when an amine is obtained as the product, as is often the case from phenethylamine derivatives, the chiral residue is cleaved by hy-drogenolysis. In such cases, the chiral amine is not, strictly speaking, a chiral auxiliary. But these processes will be discussed anyway because of their importance in asymmetric synthesis. 

H. Kunz, W. Pfrengle, K. Ruck, and W. Sager, Stereoselective synthesis of L-amino acids via Strecker and Ugi reactions on carbohydrate templates. Synthesis (1991) 1039-1042. 

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