Prochiral sulfides

Asymmetric Oxidation of Sulfides. Prochiral sulfides are oxidized by (camphorylsulfonyl)oxaziridine (1) to optically active sulfoxides. Over-oxidation to sulfones is not observed (eq 1 ). However, the best chiral A-sulfonyloxaziridines for the asymmetric oxidation of sulfides to sulfoxides are the (+)- and (Phenylsulfonyl )(3,3-dichlorocamphoryl )oxazi ridinesfi... 

Among chiral dialkylboranes, diisopinocampheylborane (8) is the most important and best-studied asymmetric hydroborating agent. It is obtained in both enantiomeric forms from naturally occurring a-pinene. Several procedures for its synthesis have been developed (151—153). The most convenient one, providing product of essentially 100% ee, involves the hydroboration of a-pinene with borane—dimethyl sulfide in tetrahydrofuran (154). Other chiral dialkylboranes derived from terpenes, eg, 2- and 3-carene (155), limonene (156), and longifolene (157,158), can also be prepared by controlled hydroboration. A more tedious approach to chiral dialkylboranes is based on the resolution of racemates. /n j -2,5-Dimethylborolane, which shows excellent enantioselectivity in the hydroboration of all principal classes of prochiral alkenes except 1,1-disubstituted terminal double bonds, has been... 

Chiral chemical reagents can react with prochiral centers in achiral substances to give partially or completely enantiomerically pure product. An example of such processes is the preparation of enantiomerically enriched sulfoxides from achiral sulfides with the use of chiral oxidant. The reagent must preferential react with one of the two prochiral faces of the sulfide, that is, the enantiotopic electron pairs. 

Prochiral aryl and dialkyl ketones are enantioselectively reduced to the corresponding alcohols using whole-cell bioconversions, or an Ir1 amino sulfide catalyst prepared in situ.695 Comparative studies show that the biocatalytic approach is the more suitable for enantioselective reduction of chloro-substituted ketones, whereas reduction of a,/ -unsaturated compounds is better achieved using the Ir1 catalyst. An important step in the total synthesis of brevetoxin B involves hydrogenation of an ester using [Ir(cod)(py) P(cy)3 ]PF6.696... 

Uemura and co-workers (91) demonstrated that copper catalysts effectively transfer nitrenoid groups to sulfides generating chiral sulfimides. A complex obtained from CuOTf and 55d catalyzes nitrenoid transfer to prochiral sulfides to afford products such as 139 in moderate to poor enantioselectivities (<71% ee, Eq. 78). Nitrenoid transfer occurs selectively to the sulfur atom of allylic sulfides generating allylic sulfenamide (140) in moderate selectivity, after [2,3] sigmatropic rearrangement of the initial sulfimide 141, Eq. 79. 

Very recently (51), nonequivalence has been found in a variety of additional monobasic solutes whose configurational analysis was thought earlier to lie outside the scope of the CSA technique. 2-Butanol, for example, when dissolved in benzene saturated with TFAE, shows nonequivalence in both methyl resonances. A variety of other chiral and prochiral compounds such as 2-propanol, methyl 2-propyl sulfide, 2-aminobutane, and 2-methyl-1-butanol show nonequivalence for their enantiotopic methyl groups under these conditions. The magnitudes of nonequivalence in these instances are small (0.02-0.03 ppm) but, as illustrated in Figure 4 for enriched 2-butanol,... 

Hoft reported about the kinetic resolution of THPO (16b) by acylation catalyzed by different lipases (equation 12) °. Using lipases from Pseudomonas fluorescens, only low ee values were obtained even at high conversions of the hydroperoxide (best result after 96 hours with lipase PS conversion of 83% and ee of 37%). Better results were achieved by the same authors using pancreatin as a catalyst. With this lipase an ee of 96% could be obtained but only at high conversions (85%), so that the enantiomerically enriched (5 )-16b was isolated in poor yields (<20%). Unfortunately, this procedure was limited to secondary hydroperoxides. With tertiary 1-methyl-1-phenylpropyl hydroperoxide (17a) or 1-cyclohexyl-1-phenylethyl hydroperoxide (17b) no reaction was observed. The kinetic resolution of racemic hydroperoxides can also be achieved by chloroperoxidase (CPO) or Coprinus peroxidase (CiP) catalyzed enantioselective sulfoxidation of prochiral sulfides 22 with a racemic mixmre of chiral hydroperoxides. In 1992, Wong and coworkers and later Hoft and coworkers in 1995 ° investigated the CPO-catalyzed sulfoxidation with several chiral racemic hydroperoxides while the CiP-catalyzed kinetic resolution of phenylethyl hydroperoxide 16a was reported by Adam and coworkers (equation 13). The results are summarized in Table 4. 

The asymmetric oxidation of prochiral sulfides has become the method of choice for the synthesis of optically active sulfoxides. The first examples of a really efficient asymmetric oxidation of snlfides to sulfoxides were independently reported by Pitchen... 

When a prochiral sulfide is submitted to the oxidation by DMD or TFD, the corresponding racemic sulfoxide is produced, whereas in the case of a chiral sulfide, diastereoselective oxidation is feasible. For example, a good diastereoselectivity was obtained with the chiral cyclic disulfide in equation 21. ... 

The enantioselective oxidation of prochiral sulfides with DMD has been achieved by using bovine serum albumin (BSA) as the chiral inductor Moderate to good enan-tioselectivities have been reported in the presence of this protein, for which a typical example is shown in equation 22 . As yet, however, no enantioselective oxidation of a prochiral sulfide has been documented by employing an optically active dioxirane. We have tried the enantioselective oxidation of methyl phenyl sulfide with the dioxirane generated from the ketone 7 (Shi s ketone), but an ee value of only ca 5% was obtained. One major hurdle that needs to be overcome with such enantioselective dioxirane oxidations is the suppression of the background oxidation of the sulfide substrate by Caroate, an unavoidable feature of the in-situ mode. 

Uemura and co-workers discovered that prochiral sulfides react with [N-(p-toluenesulfonyl)imino]phenyliodinane 207 in the presence of bis(oxazoline) ligands to form the corresponding chiral sulfimides. ° For example, ( )-cinnamyl phenyl sulfide 220 reacted with 207 in the presence of copper(I) triflate and ent-6 to form the chiral sulfimide 221 in 80% yield (58% ee) as shown in Figure 9.63. 

Chiral sulfoxides have emerged as versatile building blocks and chiral auxiliaries in the asymmetric synthesis of pharmaceutical products. The asymmetric oxidation of prochiral sulfides with chiral metal complexes has become one of the most effective routes to obtain these chiral sulfoxides.We have recently developed a new heterogeneous catalytic system (WO3-30% H2O2) which efficiently catalyzes both the asymmetric oxidation of a variety of thioethers (1) and the kinetic resolution of racemic sulfoxides (3), when used in the presence of cinchona alkaloids such as hydroquinidine 2,5-diphenyl-4,6-pyrimidinediyl diether [(DHQD)2-PYR], Optically active sulfoxides (2) are produced in high yields and with good enantioselectivities (Figure 9.3). ... 

Table 9.4 Asymmetric oxidation of prochiral sulfides ArSR by aq. H2O2 catalyzed by W03-cinchona alkaloids at 0°C...

Asymmetric oxidation of prochiral sulfides is one of the most effective routes for the preparation of chiral sulfoxides. These latter molecules attract great interest, as they are useful synthons for some drugs. They can also be used as chiral auxiliaries due to their configurational stability. The oxidation can be performed by using complexes... 

Some chiral oxazaphospholididine-borane catalysts can be used for enantioselective reduction of prochiral ketones by borane-THF or bor-ane-dimethyl sulfide complex (Scheme 19) (44). 

Equally disappointing were the results obtained employing the Fe(III) catalyst 172 for the oxidation of prochiral sulfides [115]. Though the yields observed were up to 88% the maximal ee was only 48%. From these studies it appears that the more reactive substrates display the lowest ee, pointing to smaller energy differences in the diastereomeric transition states which are expected to be early on the reaction coordinate. 

The oxidation of sulfides to sulfoxides by TBHP in the presence of Mo and V catalysts has been extensively studied.230,256 A modified Sharpless reagent,243 i.e. Ti(OPr )4/2 diethyl tartrate/1 H20, was used for the asymmetric oxidation of prochiral sulfides to sulfoxides with enantiomeric excess greater than 90% (equation 82).160,257... 

The Orsay group found serendipitously that methyl p-tolyl sulfide was oxidized to methyl p-toly 1 sulfoxide with high enantiomeric purity (80-90% ee) when the Sharpless reagent was modified by addition of 1 mole equiv. of water [16,17]. The story of this discovery was described in a review [19], Sharpless conditions gave racemic sulfoxide and sulfone. Careful optimization of the stoichiometry of the titanium complex in the oxidation of p-tolyl sulfide led to the selection of Ti(0iPr)4/(7 ,7 )-DET/H20 (1 2 1) combination as the standard system [ 17]. In the beginning of their investigations, the standard conditions implied a stoichiometric amount of the chiral titanium complex with respect to the prochiral sulfide [16,17,20-23]. Later, proper conditions were found, which decreased the amount of the titanium complex without too much alteration of the enantioselectivity [24,25],... 

The addition criterion may similarly be applied to recognize diastereotopic faces. Methyl a-phenethyl ketone, 58 in Fig. 19 has a chiral center addition clearly gives rise to diastereomers (59a, 59b) the faces of the carbonyl carbon are diastereotopic and the C = 0 group is prochiral. This case is of importance in conjunction with Cram s rule 10). Compounds 60, 62 and 64 also display diastereotopic faces even though the products 61, 63 and 65 are not chiral 60, 62 and 64 have prostereogenic rather than prochiral faces. The C=0 group in 60 is propseudoasymmetric, since C(3) in 61 is a pseudoasymmetric center. a-Phenethyl methyl sulfide (66) displays diastereotopic sides of a molecular plane not due to a double bond 5,24> and may alternatively be considered a case of diastereotopic phantom ligands (unshared pairs on sulfur). This case does involve chirality and the sulfur atom is prochiral. 

Cotton etal. [14] described an asymmetric synthesis of esomeprazole. Esomeprazole, the (S)-enantiomer of omeprazole, was synthesized via asymmetric oxidation of prochiral sulfide 5-methoxy-2-[[(4-methoxy-3,5-dimethyl pyridin-2-yl)methyl]thio]-lH-benzimidazole 1. The asymmetric oxidation was achieved by titanium-mediated oxidation with cumene hydroperoxide in the presence of (S,S)-diethyl tartarate (DET). The enan-tioselectivity was provided by preparing the titanium complex in the presence of sulfide 1 at an elevated temperature and/or during a prolonged preparation time and by performing the oxidation of sulfide 1 in the presence of amine. An enantioselectivity of 94% ee was obtained using this method. 

Other convenient reagents for the imidation of sulfides and selenides are imidoiodanes such as A-(/>-tolylsulfonyl)-imino(phenyl)iodane (PhI=NTs).304 Unfortunately, these reagents are sometimes difficult to prepare due to their thermal sensitivity and some have even been claimed to be explosive.305 Selenimides are tricoordinate tetravalent compounds and can be isolated in optically active forms. They can be prepared from optically active selenoxides, a reaction which was shown to occur with an overall retention of stereochemistry.306 They can also be obtained by optical resolution of a diastereomeric selenimide and stereochemical issues including kinetics of epimerization by pyramidal inversion were studied in detail.307 Also the enantioselective imidation of prochiral selenides of type 179 is possible by using a combination of A-(/>-tolylsulfonyl)imino(phenyl)iodane (PhI=NTs) and a catalytic amount of... 

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