The Aldol Approach

Consistent with Raphael s observation in the trichodermin series, reaction of dimethylsulfonium methylide with ketone (108) produces an epoxide epimeric with the natural product. 

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In general, the aldol strategy should be your first choice. If you feel that the chemo- and regio-selectivity of the aldol reaction can be controlled and that the stereochemistry is likely to be correct, you should try the aldol approach. Of course, as in all aspects of synthetic chemistry, a literature search for precedents might save a lot of time. Even the aldol fails sometimes. 

Bernard A, A M CapeUi, A Comotti, C Gannari, J M Goodman and I Paterson 1990. Transltion-St Modeling of the Aldol Reaction of Boron Enolates A Force Field Approach. Journal of Orga Chemistry 55 3576-3581. 

In antithetical analyses of carbon skeletons the synthon approach described in chapter I is used in the reverse order, e.g. 1,3-difunctional target molecules are "transformed" by imaginary retro-aldol type reactions, cyclohexene derivatives by imaginary relro-Diels-Alder reactions. 

Due to mechanistic requirements, most of these enzymes are quite specific for the nucleophilic component, which most often is dihydroxyacetone phosphate (DHAP, 3-hydroxy-2-ox-opropyl phosphate) or pyruvate (2-oxopropanoate), while they allow a reasonable variation of the electrophile, which usually is an aldehyde. Activation of the donor substrate by stereospecific deprotonation is either achieved via imine/enamine formation (type 1 aldolases) or via transition metal ion induced enolization (type 2 aldolases mostly Zn2 )2. The approach of the aldol acceptor occurs stereospecifically following an overall retention mechanism, while facial differentiation of the aldehyde is responsible for the relative stereoselectivity. 

Typically, lyases are quite specific for the nucleophilic donor component owing to mechanistic requirements. Usually, approach of the aldol acceptor to the enzyme-bound nucleophile occurs stereospedfically following an overall retention mechanism, while the facial differentiation of the aldehyde carbonyl is responsible for the relative stereoselectivity. In this manner, the stereochemistry of the C—C bond formation is completely controlled by the enzymes, in general irrespective of the constitution or configuration of the substrate, which renders the enzymes highly predictable. On the other hand, most of the lyases allow a reasonably broad variation of the electrophilic acceptor component that is usually an aldehyde. This feature... 

Another approach involved encapsulation of a bulky guanidine, N,N,N-tricyclohexyl-guanidine, in the super-cages of hydrophobic zeolite Y (Sercheli et ai, 1997). The resulting ship-in-a-bottle guanidine catalysed the aldol reaction of benzaldehyde with acetone to give 4-phenyl-4-hydroxybutan-2-one. 

This approach was used for the total synthesis of the macrolide leucascandrolide A (2-245) starting from the building blocks 2-242 and 2-243 [133]. The transformation led to 2-244 in 78% yield as a 5.5 1 mixture of the C-9-epimers (Scheme 2.58). The observed unusual high facial selectivity in the aldol reaction can apparently be traced back to the stereogenic center in 3-position of the aldehyde 2-242. 

Another anionic/radical one-pot sequence was developed by Guindon and coworkers for the stereoselective synthesis of substituted pentanoates 2-718 (Scheme 2.158) [365]. Such structures are found in polyketides and are, therefore, of great interest. The described approach offers a diastereoselective access to all four possible stereoisomers of 2-718 through a Mukaiyama aldol/radical defunctionalization sequence starting from 2-716 and 2-717 with addition of Bu3SnH after completion of the first step. 

The nitro-aldol approach is impractical for the synthesis of 2,2-disubstituted 1-nitroalkenes due to the reversibility of the reaction when ketones are employed as substrates. Addition-elimination reactions are used for the preparation of such nitroalkenes (see Chapter 4). 

Thus far, most of the stereoselective approaches to aldol reactions mentioned have depended on substrate-based asymmetric induction by employing chiral... 

The aldol reaction is one of the most important reactions in synthetic organic chemistry. Many traditional ionic routes are currently available for diastereo- and enantioselective aldol reaction [97-99]. In contrast to highly basic ionic processes, development of radical methods for preparation of aldols using neutral conditions is attractive [100-102]. With the exception of intramolecular cyclization reactions, radical approaches towards aldol products remain largely unexplored [103-109]. 

The addition of allenyl metal reagents to aldehydes affords homopropargylic alcohols with contiguous OH- and Me-substituted stereocenters, which serves as a complementary approach to the aldol condensation for polyketide synthesis. Marshall has developed this method extensively and this work is the subject of a more detailed review (cf. Chapter 9) [50]. The applications of this method to the synthesis of naturally occurring compounds have also been wide-ranging and a few are highlighted below. 

Our second approach involved condensation of the lithium enolate of acetate 32 with aldehyde 28. In the event, the aldol reaction afforded an 85 % yield of a ca. 5 1 mixture of C3 epimers with the desired diastereomer (35) comprising the major product. 

Three tactical approaches were surveyed in the evolution of our program. As outlined in Scheme 2.7, initially the aldol reaction (Path A) was performed direcdy between aldehyde 63 and the dianion derived from tricarbonyl 58. In this way, it was indeed possible to generate the Z-lithium enolate of 58 as shown in Scheme 2.7 which underwent successful aldol condensation. However, the resultant C7 P-hydroxyl functionality tended to cyclize to the C3 carbonyl group, thereby affording a rather unmanageable mixture of hydroxy ketone 59a and lactol 59b products. Lac-tol formation could be reversed following treatment of the crude aldol product under the conditions shown (Scheme 2.7) however, under these conditions an inseparable 4 1 mixture of diastereomeric products, 60 (a or b) 61 (a or b) [30], was obtained. This avenue was further impeded when it became apparent that neither the acetate nor TES groups were compatible with the remainder of the synthesis. 

This dual behaviour must allow control of the configuration at the a carbon atom in an aldol reaction, provided that one can control whether or not the metal is chelated at the time the aldol condensation occurs. Thornton and Nerz-Stormes [35] reported an approach to this problem by using titanium enolates to obtain "non-Evans" 5jn-aldols. On the other hand, Heathcock and his associated found that aldehydes react with chelated boron enolates 100b to afford the anh-aldols 102 or the "non-Evans" i yn-aldols 103 depending upon the reaction conditions (Scheme 9.32). 

Darzens reaction of (-)-8-phenylmethyl a-chloroacetate (and a-bromoacetate) with various ketones (Scheme 2) yields ctT-glycidic esters (28) with high geometric and diastereofacial selectivity which can be explained in terms of both open-chain or non-chelated antiperiplanar transition state models for the initial aldol-type reaction the ketone approaches the Si-f ce of the Z-enolate such that the phenyl ring of the chiral auxiliary and the enolate portion are face-to-face. Aza-Darzens condensation reaction of iV-benzylideneaniline has also been studied. Kinetically controlled base-promoted lithiation of 3,3-diphenylpropiomesitylene results in Z enolate ratios in the range 94 6 (lithium diisopropylamide) to 50 50 (BuLi), depending on the choice of solvent and temperature. ... 

Naturally occurring macrocycles are attractive targets for the synthetic organic community, first of all because of their challenging structures. They have aided progress in the systematic approach to analyze and synthesize stereogenic triads by aldol or homoallyl alcohol methods [5, 6]. 

Marhwald reported that ligand exchange of Ti(rac-BINOLate)(Of-Bu)2 with optically active a-hydroxy acids presents an unexpected and novel approach to enantio-selective direct aldol reactions of aldehydes and ketones (Scheme 12.19). The aldol products have been isolated with a high degree of syn diastereoselectivity. High enantioselectivities have been observed when using simple optically pure a-hydroxy acids. 

The first asymmetric enamine-catalyzed Mannich reactions were described by List in 2000 [208]. Paralleling the development of the enamine-catalyzed aldol reactions, the first asymmetric Mannich reactions were catalyzed by proline, and a range of cyclic and acyclic aliphatic ketones were used as donors (Schemes 24 and 25). In contrast to the aldol reaction, however, most Mannich reactions are syn selective. This is presumably due to the larger size of the imine acceptor, forcing the imine and the enamine to approach each other in a different manner than is possible with aldehyde acceptors (Scheme 23). 

The aldol-type coupling described in the previous section was completely suppressed under CO (20 atm.). However, Murai and co-workers have reported a new approach to enoxysilanes based on the coupling of an alkene, a hydrosilane, and CO in the presence of Co2(CO)g [14]. This conspicuous difference in catalytic ability between rhodium and cobalt stimulated us to examine the incorporation of CO and a hydrosilane in the presence of rhodium. 

The aldol addition reaction has long been recognized as one of the most useful tools that the synthetic chemist has for the construction of new C—C bonds [2]. Concomitant with the C—C bond-forming process is the formation of one or two new stereocenters, allowing us to approach a broad range of both natural and novel compounds. 

The bis-Henry aldol approach is best illustrated by recent work by Osborn and Turkson.81 Shown in Scheme 27 is the sequence starting from methyl... 

The epothilone synthesis in Scheme 13.49 has been used as the basis for a combinatorial approach to epothilone analogs. 167 The acyclic precursors were synthesized and attached to a solid support resin by steps A-E in Scheme 13.58. The cyclization and disconnection from the resin were then done by the olefin metathesis reaction. The aldol condensation in step D is not highly stereoselective. Similarly, olefin metathesis gives a mixture of E- and Z-stereoisomers so that the product of each combinatorial sequence is a mixture of four isomers. These were separated by thin-layer chromatography prior to bioassay. In this project, reactants A (3 variations), B (3 variations), and C (5 variations) were used, generating 45 possible combinations. The stereoisomeric products increase this to 180 (45 x 4). 

Intramolecular cycloadditions of alkenyl-substituted nitrile oxides produce bicyclic isoxazolines. When monocyclic olehns are used, tricyclic structures are obtained. This approach was pioneered by both Kozikowski s and Curran s groups. A typical case involves the cycloaddition of nitro compound 191 [mixture of diastereomers derived from pentenose pyranoside 190], which produced a diaster-eomeric mixture of isoxazolines that contain cis-fused rings (i.e., 192) in near quantitative yield (326) (Scheme 6.85). Further elaboration of this mixture led to epoxycyclopentano-isoxazoline 193, which was then converted to the aldol product in the usual manner. The hydrogenation proceeded well only when rhodium on alumina was used as the catalyst, giving the required p-hydroxyketone 194. This... 

The use of classical condensation reactions is important. Thus, the Dieckmann reaction (equation 38) and the Thorpe-Ziegler cyclization (equation 39) have been used for almost a century for the preparation of a wide range of monocyclic and benzo-fused heterocycles. The aldol condensation and related reactions have also been fairly widely exploited, especially for the synthesis of 4-quinolones (the Camps reaction, e.g. equation 40), and various extensions of this general approach are described in the monograph chapters. 

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