Tartaric acid enantiomerism

The separation of a racemic mixture into its enantiomeric components is termed resolution The first resolution that of tartaric acid was carried out by Louis Pasteur m 1848 Tartaric acid IS a byproduct of wine making and is almost always found as its dextrorotatory 2R 3R stereoisomer shown here m a perspective drawing and m a Fischer projection... 

Although Pasteur was unable to provide a structural explanation—that had to wait for van t Hoff and Le Bel a quarter of a century later—he correctly deduced that the enantiomeric quality of the crystals was the result of enantiomeric molecules The rare form of tartanc acid was optically inactive because it contained equal amounts of (+) tartaric acid and (—) tartaric acid It had earlier been called racemic acid (from Latin racemus meaning a bunch of grapes ) a name that subsequently gave rise to our pres ent term for an equal mixture of enantiomers... 

Some physical properties of the four enantiomeric tartaric acids are compared in Table 8. 

Similar results are found with the threose derivatives 11 and 13. Both aldehydes can be readily synthesized in either enantiomeric form from l- and D-tartaric acid. The open-chain aldehyde 11 with Grignard reagents affords predominantly the all-.v> n(xj/o)-diastereomer 12. The steric demand of the nucleophile apparently does not affect the diastereoselectivity, and the extremely high selectivity observed with [(l,3-dioxolan-2-yl)methyl]magnesium bromide is attributed to the presence of the dioxolane moiety, which is thought to stabilize the a-chelated transition state. 

Optically active (2R,3R)-dimethoxysuccinimide derivatives 4, prepared from (.R,./ -tartaric acid, arc reduced in excellent yield with high stereoselectivity by sodium borohydride in ethanol at 0- 5 °C to furnish a 20 1 mixture of diastereomeric hydroxylactams 543, which, on treatment with acid, give rise to the formation of the enantiomerically pure chiral /V-acylimini-um ions 6,... 

Enantiopure (R)- and (S)-nipecotic acid (Nip) derivatives 64 were obtained following classical resolution of ethyl nipecotate with either enantiomer of tartaric acid and successive recrystallization of the corresponding salts [153, 154, 156] or by resolution of racemic nipecotic acid with enantiomerically pure camphorsul-fonic acid [154]. N-Boc protected pyrrolidine-3-carboxylic acid (PCA) 65 for the synthesis of homo-ohgomers [155] was prepared by GeUman from trans-4-hydroxy-L-prohne according to a known procedure [157]. 

The enantioselective hydrogenation of prochiral substances bearing an activated group, such as an ester, an acid or an amide, is often an important step in the industrial synthesis of fine and pharmaceutical products. In addition to the hydrogenation of /5-ketoesters into optically pure products with Raney nickel modified by tartaric acid [117], the asymmetric reduction of a-ketoesters on heterogeneous platinum catalysts modified by cinchona alkaloids (cinchonidine and cinchonine) was reported for the first time by Orito and coworkers [118-121]. Asymmetric catalysis on solid surfaces remains a very important research area for a better mechanistic understanding of the interaction between the substrate, the modifier and the catalyst [122-125], although excellent results in terms of enantiomeric excesses (up to 97%) have been obtained in the reduction of ethyl pyruvate under optimum reaction conditions with these Pt/cinchona systems [126-128],... 

The first reported application of phospholane-based ligands for enantiomeric hydrogenation was described by Brunner and Sievi in 1987 [6], Unfortunately, these trans-3,4-disubstituted phospholanes (1-3) were derived from tartaric acid, and proved to be relatively unselective for the rhodium-catalyzed hydrogenation of (Z)-a-(N-acetamido)cinnamic acid (6.6-16.8% ee). This was, presumably, due to the remoteness of the chiral centers from the metal coordination sphere failing to impart a significant influence. This was also found to be the case with several other bi- and tridentate analogues [7]. 

The Lewis acid catalyst 53 is now referred to as the Narasaka catalyst. This catalyst can be generated in situ from the reaction of dichlorodiisopropoxy-titanium and a diol chiral ligand derived from tartaric acid. This compound can also catalyze [2+2] cycloaddition reactions with high enantioselectivity. For example, as depicted in Scheme 5-20, in the reaction of alkenes bearing al-kylthio groups (ketene dithioacetals, alkenyl sulfides, and alkynyl sulfides) with electron-deficient olefins, the corresponding cyclobutane or methylenecyclobu-tene derivatives can be obtained in high enantiomeric excess.18... 

Thus Pasteur noted that the amide of (-) malic acid forms molecular compounds of different properties with the enantiomeric amides of tartaric acid. With amide of (+) tartaric acid large transparent crystals are formed whose solubility is 18% at 20°C, while with the amide of (-) tartaric acid, thin needles are formed with solubility almost two times higher. Free malic and tartaric acids also form diastereomeric molecular compounds. 

Natural compounds are also applied as chiral ligands in enantioselective homogeneous metallo-catalysts. A classical example is the Sharpless epoxidation of primary allylic alcohols with tert-butyl hydroperoxide [37]. Here the diethyl ester of natural (R,R)-(+)-tartaric acid (a by-product of wine manufacture) is used as bi-dentate ligand of the Ti(iv) center. The enantiomeric excess is >90%. The addition of zeolite KA or NaA is essential [38], bringing about adsorption of traces of water and - by cation exchange - some ionization of the hydroperoxide. 

We can easily draw the four predicted isomers, as we did for the ephedrine-pseudoephedrine group, and two of these represent the enantiomeric pair of (—)-tartaric acid and (+)-tartaric acid. Now let us consider the other pair of isomers, and we shall see the consequences of... 

We can draw these three stereoisomers as Fischer projections, reversing the configurations at both centres to get the enantiomeric stereoisomers, whilst the Fischer projection for the third isomer, the meso compound, is characterized immediately by a plane of symmetry. For (-l-)-tartaric acid, the configuration is 2R, >R), and for (—)-tartaric acid it is (2S,3S). For both chiral centres, the group of lowest priority is hydrogen, which is on a horizontal line. In fact, this is the case in almost all Fischer projections, since, by convention, the vertical... 

Through luck, in 1848, Louis Pasteur was able to separate or resolve racemic tartaric acid into its (+) and (—) forms by crystallization. Two enantiomers of the sodium ammonium salt of tartaric acid give rise to two distinctly different types of chiral crystal that can then be separated easily. However, only a very few organic compounds crystallize into separate crystals (of two enantiomeric forms) that are visibly chiral as are the crystals of the sodium ammonium salt of tartaric acid. Therefore, Pasteur s method of separation of enantiomers is not generally applicable to the separation of enantiomers. 

The tartaric acid scaffold also led to the design of one of the most effective and general methods to generate enantiomerically enriched substituted cyclopropyhnethanol derivatives. Indeed, the chiral dioxaborolane ligand 19, prepared from tetramethyltartramide and butylboronic acid, is a superb chiral additive in allylic alcohol-directed cyclopropanation reactions (equation 83) . The best procedure requires the use of the soluble bis(iodomethyl)zinc DME complex . The reaction affords high yields and enantiomeric... 

The first described synthesis of the enantiomeric cetirizine employed resolution of a ( )-chlorobenzhydrylainine as the salt with tartaric acid. Later, an asymmetric synthesis was reported by the Corey group in 1996 (Scheme 7). The pivotal step involved a chiral oxazaborolidine (CBS)-catalyzed reduction of an unsymmetrical chlorobenzophenone with a Tt-chromium tricarbonyl group serving as an effective... 

Access to racemic thiazolidine-2-carboxylic acid (3-thiaproline, 12) is obtained by reacting cysteamine (49) with glyoxylic acid ester (Scheme 9), 165>182>1831 whilst the reaction of (R)-cysteine with glyoxylic acid 184 1851 leads to (2/ /S,5/ )-thiazolidine-2-carboxylic acid. 185 The diastereomers of thiazolidine-2-carboxylic add (12) are rapidly interconverting and therefore cannot be separated. 185 In the presence of (2R,3R)- and (2S,3S)-tartaric acid, reaction of cysteamine with glyoxylic acid leads to the enantiomerically pure (2/ )- and (2S)-thia-zolidine-2-carboxylic acid salts. 186 The acids undergo fast racemization in acetic acid. 186 ... 

We then focused on the synthesis of lipid A analogs which contain 3-hydroxy fatty acids. For this purpose, sufficient amount of (R)-3-hydroxytetradecanoic acid ( ), which is the commonest hydroxy acid in Salmonella lipid A, was first prepared by means of an asymmetric reduction of the corresponding keto ester, i. ., methyl 3-oxotetradecanoate (j ) (7). Catalytic hydrogenation of 21 in the presence of Raney Ni modified with (R, R)-tartaric acid foaBr (8) afforded the crude (R)-ester in 85% enantiomeric excess. After saponification, the resultant acid was purified through its dicyclohexylammonium salt to give the optically and chemically pure (R)-acid In a yield of 61% from... 

The tartaric acids incorporate two equivalently substituted stereogenic centers. (+)-Tartaric acid, as noted in the text, is the 2R,3R stereoisomer. There will be two additional stereoisomers, the enantiomeric ( )-tartaric acid (2S,3S) and an optically inactive meso form. 

Two ligands are enantiotopic if replacement of either one of them by a different achiral ligand7 (see also footnote 5 on p. 9) gives rise to enantiomeric products. Examples are shown in Fig. 13. The marked hydrogens (HA, HB) in CH2ClBr (30), meso-tartaric acid (32), cyclobutanone (34) [at C(2) and C(4) but not C(3)] and chloroallene (36) [at C(3)] are enantiotopic, as are the methyl carbons in isopropyl alcohol (55). meso-Tartaric acid, incidentally, exemplifies one of the rare instances of a molecule with heterotopic ligands but no discernible prochiral center or other element of prochirality. 

Chow and Mak came to a similar conclusion on investigating the chiroptical properties of dendrimers containing enantiomerically pure threitol building blocks obtained from tartaric acid as spacers between the achiral phloroglucin branching units (see Fig. 4.73) [27]. They found that the chiral spacers in the dendrimer scaffold do not influence one another and contribute additively to the overall rotation. Moreover, they also observed that on introduction of both enantiomers one (R,R)-threitol unit precisely compensated the rotational contribution of one (S,S)-threitol unit, provided that the enantiomeric building blocks were located at equivalent positions within the dendrimer scaffold. However, CD-spectroscopic data revealed that the contribution of the exterior threitol units to the total rotation must be slightly different from that of the interior units. 

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