Terpenes Chiral auxiliary synthesis

Since the early times of stereochemistry, the phenomena related to chirality ( dis-symetrie moleculaire, as originally stated by Pasteur) have been treated or referred to as enantiomericaUy pure compounds. For a long time the measurement of specific rotations has been the only tool to evaluate the enantiomer distribution of an enantioimpure sample hence the expressions optical purity and optical antipodes. The usefulness of chiral assistance (natural products, circularly polarized light, etc.) for the preparation of optically active compounds, by either resolution or asymmetric synthesis, has been recognized by Pasteur, Le Bel, and van t Hoff. The first chiral auxiliaries selected for asymmetric synthesis were alkaloids such as quinine or some terpenes. Natural products with several asymmetric centers are usually enantiopure or close to 100% ee. With the necessity to devise new routes to enantiopure compounds, many simple or complex auxiliaries have been prepared from natural products or from resolved materials. Often the authors tried to get the highest enantiomeric excess values possible for the chiral auxiliaries before using them for asymmetric reactions. When a chiral reagent or catalyst could not be prepared enantiomericaUy pure, the enantiomeric excess (ee) of the product was assumed to be a minimum value or was corrected by the ee of the chiral auxiliary. The experimental data measured by polarimetry or spectroscopic methods are conveniently expressed by enantiomeric excess and enantiomeric... 

All the optically active terpenes mentioned in this chapter are commercially available in bulk (>kg) quantities and are fairly inexpensive. Although many of them are isolated from natural sources, they can also be produced economically by synthetic methods. Actually, two thirds of these monoterpenes sold in the market today are manufactured by synthetic or semi-synthetic routes. These optically active molecules usually possess simple carbocyclic rings with one or two stereo-genic centers and have modest functionality for convenient structural manipulations. These unique features render them attractive as chiral pool materials for synthesis of optically active fine chemicals or pharmaceuticals. Industrial applications of these terpenes as chiral auxiliaries, chiral synthons, and chiral reagents have increased significantly in recent years. The expansion of the chiral pool into terpenes will continue with the increase in complexity and chirality of new drug candidates in the research and development pipeline of pharmaceutical companies. 

Many chiral auxiliaries are derived from 1,2-amino alcohols.7 These include oxazolidinones (l),7-9 oxazolines (2),10 11 bis-oxazolines (3),1213 oxazinones (4),14 and oxazaborolidines (5).15-17 Even the 1,2-amino alcohol itself can be used as a chiral auxiliary.18-22 Other chiral auxiliaries examples include camphorsultams (6),23 piperazinediones (7),24 SAMP [(S)-l-amino-2-methoxy-methylpyrrolidine] (8) and RAMP (ent-8),25 chiral boranes such as isopinocampheylborane (9),26 and tartaric acid esters (10). For examples of terpenes as chiral auxiliaries, see Chapter 5. Some of these auxiliaries have been used as ligands in reagents (e.g., Chapters 17 and 24), such as 3 and 5, whereas others have only been used at laboratory scale (e.g., 6 and 7). It should be noted that some auxiliaries may be used to synthesize starting materials, such as an unnatural amino acid, for a drug synthesis, and these may not have been reported in the primary literature. 

An example of the use of a terpene as a chiral auxiliary is provided by the synthesis of the anti-viral reverse transcriptase inhibitor Lamivudine (148). The nucleoside analog is marketed by Biochem Pharma (now Shire Pharmaceuticals) and Glaxo Wellcome (now GlaxoSmithKline) for the treatment of HIV and hepatitis B virus infection. In the... 

The terpene menthol is widely used in organic synthesis, and serves as a chiral auxiliary for several asymmetric reactions [39]. (-)-Menthol 53 could be produced in one step from isopulegol 55 by hydrogenation of the carbon-carbon double bond, and the latter compound could be prepared by a Lewis acid-induced carbonyl-ene reaction [40] of f-(y )-citronellal 54. Nakatani and Kawashima examined that the ene cyclization of citronellal to isopulegol with several Lewis acids in benzene (Sch. 22) [41]. The zinc reagents were far superior to other Lewis acids for obtaining... 

Alternatively, alkoxycarbene complexes are formed upon alcoholysis of strongly electrophilic acyloxycarbene complexes 16 [26] generated by in situ acylation of tetraalkylammo-nium acyl metalates 15. These compounds are obtained from lithium precursors 11 and can be stored in a refrigerator for months. This is the method of choice for the synthesis of chiral metal carbenes 17 bearing terpene or sugar auxiliaries (Scheme 9). 

Dysidiolide is a terpene of current interest in medicinal chemistry. Its structure invites creative approaches. The first synthesis by the Corey group [21] (Scheme 11.16) starts from a readily available chiral building block with one stereogenic center. The striking fact is that this stereogenic center appears nowhere in the target structure. It serves as an auxiliary to derive the other stereogenic centers and ultimately it had to be removed in an impressive way. 

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