The Asymmetric Mannich Reaction in Organic Synthesis

In contrast to the classic intramolecular Mannich reaction, which is well established, for example, in the synthesis of natural products [48], the insufficient stereocontrol and the formation of undesired by-products due to the harsh 

SCHEME 11.8 The biosynthetic route toward indoUzidine alkaloids derived from the amino acid lysine. 

FIGURE 11.1 Recent examples of L-omithine- and L-lysine-derived alkaloids, which involve the Mannich reaction as key step in the total synthesis toward these alkaloids. 

SCHEME 11.9 The formation of new C-C bonds-aldol vs. Mannich reactions. 

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This chapter has introduced the aldol and related allylation reactions of carbonyl compounds, the allylation of imine compounds, and Mannich-type reactions. Double asymmetric synthesis creates two chiral centers in one step and is regarded as one of the most efficient synthetic strategies in organic synthesis. The aldol and related reactions discussed in this chapter are very important reactions in organic synthesis because the reaction products constitute the backbone of many important antibiotics, anticancer drugs, and other bioactive molecules. Indeed, study of the aldol reaction is still actively pursued in order to improve reaction conditions, enhance stereoselectivity, and widen the scope of applicability of this type of reaction. 

The asymmetric Mannich reaction of an enolate and an imine furnishing valuable p amino carbonyls is a fundamental C C bond forming process in organic chemistry that has broad utility in organic synthesis particularly for P amino acid synthesis [1]. Extending the enolate component into a dienolate offers the opportunity for a bond forming event with an electrophile both at the a and the y positions of this ambident nucleophile (Scheme 5.1). 

In 2006, Hoveyda and coworkers developed an asymmetric Mannich reaction of silyloxyfurans and aldimines using a similar catalyst system (Scheme 9.18).28 The diastereo- and enantioselective reaction between silyloxyfurans and aldimines in the presence of catalyst gave y-butenolides, which are useful building blocks for organic synthesis. They also reported a mechanistic study of this reaction.2811... 

Notz W, Tanaka F, Watanabe S, Chaudari NS, Turner JM, Thayumanavan R, Barbas CF 3rd (2003) The direct organocatalytic asymmetric mannich reaction unmodified aldehydes as nucleophiles. J Org Chem 68 9624-9634 Noyori R (2002) Asymmetric catalysis science and opportunities (Nobel lecture). Angew Chem Int Ed Engl 41 2008-2022 Noyori R, Tokunaga M, Kitamura M (1995) Stereoselective organic synthesis via dynamic kinetic resolution. Bull Chem Soc Jpn 68 36-55 Ohkuma T, Kitamura M, Noyori R (2000) Asymmetric hydrogenation. In Ojima I (ed) Catalytic asymmetric synthesis, 2nd edn. Wiley-VCH, New York, p 1-110... 

To facilitate the use of p-amino-aldehydes or -alcohols, obtained through asymmetric Mannich reactions, List et al. provided a procedure to use N-Boc-protected, preformed imines (21, 22) (Scheme 5.13a). While this method requires the formation of the imines, it provides products that can be deprotected under mild conditions, as compared to the widely used and robust PMB-protection in these reactions. Even acetaldehyde is applicable as aldehyde source (Scheme 5.13b). The p-amino-aldehydes (23, 24) obtained from this transformation are extremely valuable building blocks in organic synthesis, making this discovery one of the most useful applications of proline catalysis to date. 

Enantioselective vanadium and niobium catalysts provide chemists with new and powerful tools for the efficient preparation of optically active molecules. Over the past few decades, the use of vanadium and niobium catalysts has been extended to a variety of different and complementaiy asymmetric reactions. These reactions include cyanide additions, oxidative coupling of 2-naphthols, Friedel-Crafts-type reactions, pinacol couplings, Diels-Alder reactions, Mannich-type reactions, desymmetrisation of epoxides and aziridines, hydroaminations, hydroaminoalkylations, sulfoxida-tions, epoxidations, and oxidation of a-hydroxy carbo) lates Thus, their major applications are in Lewis acid-based chemistiy and redox chemistry. In particular, vanadium is attractive as a metal catalyst in organic synthesis because of its natural abundance as well as its relatively low toxicity and moisture sensitivity compared with other metals. The fact that vanadium is present in nature in equal abundance to zinc (albeit in a more widely distributed form and more difficult to access) is not widely appreciated. Inspired by the activation of substrates in nature [e.g. bromoperoxidase. 

For example, an effective procedure for the synthesis of LLB (where LL = lanthanum and lithium) is treatment of LaCls 7H2O with 2.7 mol equiv. BINOL dilithium salt, and NaO-t-Bu (0.3 mol equiv.) in THF at 50 °C for 50 h. Another efficient procedure for the preparation of LLB starts from La(0-/-Pr)3 [54], the exposure of which to 3 mol equiv. BINOL in THF is followed by addition of butyllithium (3 mol equiv.) at 0 C. It is worthy of note that heterobimetallic asymmetric complexes which include LLB are stable in organic solvents such as THF, CH2CI2 and toluene which contain small amounts of water, and are also insensitive to oxygen. These heterobimetallic complexes can, by choice of suitable rare earth and alkali metals, be used to promote a variety of efficient asymmetric reactions, for example nitroaldol, aldol, Michael, nitro-Mannich-type, hydrophosphonylation, hydrophosphination, protonation and Diels-Alder reactions. A catalytic asymmetric nitroaldol reaction, a direct catalytic asymmetric aldol reaction, and a catalytic asymmetric nitro-Mannich-type reaction are discussed in detail below. 

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