Thiourea-cinchona alkaloid catalysts

In 2007, Jorgensen and coworkers demonstrated that the bifunctional thiourea-cinchona alkaloid catalysts 81b also promoted the enantioselective addition of oximes 153 as oxygen nucleophiles to nitroolefins 124 giving the adduct 154 in good yield with a high level of enantioselectivity (Scheme 9.52) [45]. The obtained adduct 154 can be converted to the optically active aliphatic nitro- or aminoalcohols. It is believed that the... 

The hybrid thiourea-cinchona alkaloid catalyst 14 proved to be effective in a stereoselective Michael addition reaction between a,p-unsaturated y-butyrolactam 11 and chalcone 12 (Scheme 3.22). The following mechanistic study addressed the issue of the origin of sfereoselecfion. 

Scheme 3.22 Michael addition reaction catalyzed by hybrid thiourea-cinchona alkaloid catalyst 14. (Data from Zhu, J.-L. et al, /. Org. Chem., 77, 9813-9825, 2012.)...

Modified Cinchona alkaloids catalysts have been developed in the last two decades to enhance further the bifunctional mode of the catalyst. Derivations at the C(9)-OH group, replacement of quinoline C(6 )-OCH3 with a hydroxyl group to enhance hydrogen bonding, syntheses of bis-Cinchona alkaloids, and development of thiourea-derived Cinchona alkaloids are most notable. 

Catalyst 3 is proposed to function in a manner similar to the cinchona alkaloid catalysts (1 and 2), with the tertiary amine providing activation for the nucleophilic thiol, which is held in close proximity to the thiourea-bound carbonyl substrate. 

However, when the dienophile was replaced with unsaturated nitrile, 1 j (or lk) was proved to be ineffective. Other bifunctional catalysts, 9-thiourea cinchona alkaloids 11 and lm [21], which were prepared from 9-amino-9-deoxyepiquinidine and 9-amino-... 

Few examples have been reported for the organocatalytic asymmetric conjugate addition of sulfur nucleophiles other than thiols. The reaction of thiocarboxylic acids to cyclohex-2-enones [390] and a,p-nnsatnrated esters [391] was initially studied by Wynberg et al. employing Cinchona alkaloid catalysts with limited success in terms of selectivity (up to 54% ee). Slightly better enantioselectivities have been recently obtained by Wang et al. in the 1,4-addition of thioacetic acid to P-nitrostyrenes (up to 78% ee) [392] and trani-chalcones (up to 65% ee) [393], using Takemoto s thiourea 142 as catalyst (2-10 mol%). 

This challenging problem was addressed by Deng and coworkers [51] by the use of 9-thiourea cinchona alkaloids as acid-base bifunctional catalysts. As shown in Scheme 10.30, the enantioselective aza-Friedel-Crafts reaction proceeded through a network of hydrogen bonding interactions between indoles 145 and A-Ts aldimines 149... 

A further important advance was also achieved by Rouden et al. [17] who developed the use of thiourea cinchona alkaloids 33-34 in the enantioselective decarboxylative protonation of a-aminomalonates (Scheme 3.12). The basic idea in using these bifunctional catalysts was to take advantage of the good hydrogen-bond donor properties of the thiourea moiety to promote further interactions between the chiral proton source and the prochiral enolate intermediate. Bifunctional catalyst 33 in quinidine series turned out to be especially efficient with a large range of substrates... 

Using the addition of dimethyl malonate to nitro-olefms as the model reaction, Connon et al. [72] in 2(X)5 reported a highly functionahzed Cinchona alkaloid-derived chiral thiourea. Key functional groups were identified to enhance the catalyst s stereodirecting properties. Aside from the advantage of a bifunctional Cinchona alkaloid... 

Cinchona alkaloid-derived chiral thiourea catalyst xo... 

Wang and co-workers reported a novel class of organocatalysts for the asymmetric Michael addition of 2,4-pentandiones to nitro-olefms [131]. A screen of catalyst types showed that the binaphthol-derived amine thiourea promoted the enantiose-lective addition in high yield and selectivity, unlike the cyclohexane-diamine catalysts and Cinchona alkaloids (Scheme 77, Table 5). 

The Soos group, in 2005, prepared the first thiourea derivatives from the cinchona alkaloids quinine QN (8S, 9R-121), dihydroquinidine DHQD (8S, 9S-122), C9-epi-QN (8S, 9P-123), and quinidine QD (SR, 9R-124) via an experimentally simple one-step protocol with epimerization at the C9-position of the alkaloid starting material (Figure 6.39) [278]. The catalytic efficiency of these new thiourea derivatives and also of unmodified QN and C9-epi-QN was evaluated in the enan-tioselective Michael addition [149-152] of nitromethane to the simple model chal-cone 1,3-diphenyl-propenone resulting in adduct 1 in Scheme 6.119. After 99h reaction time at 25 °C in toluene and at 10 mol% catalyst loading QN turned out to be a poor catalyst (4% yield/42% ee (S)-adduct) and C9-epi-QN even failed to accelerate the screening reaction. In contrast, the C9-modified cinchona alkaloid... 

C9-epi-122 98% conv. (99% ee) after 30h, respectively (Figure 6.40). This structure-efficiency relationship supported the results already published by the Soos group for quinine- and quinidine-derived thioureas (Figure 6.39) [278]. C9-epimeric catalysts were found to be remarkably more efficient in terms of rate acceleration and stereoinduction than the analogs of natural cinchona alkaloid stereochemistry. This trend was also observed for the corresponding (thio)ureas derived from DHQD as shown by the experimental results in Figure 6.40 [279]. 

The use of bifunctional thiourea-substituted cinchona alkaloid derivatives has continued to gamer interest, with the Deng laboratory reporting the use of a 6 -thiourea-substituted cinchona derivative for both the Mannich reactions of malo-nates with imines [136] and the Friedel-Crafts reactions of imines with indoles [137]. In both reports, a catalyst loading of 10-20 mol% provided the desired products in almost uniformly high yields and high enantioselectivities. Thiourea-substituted cinchona derivatives have also been used for the enantioselective aza-Henry reactions of aldimines [138] and the enantioselective Henry reactions of nitromethane with aromatic aldehydes [139]. 

Zhang et al. investigated the asymmetric 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of tert-butyl 2-(diphenylmethyleneamino)acetate and nitroalkenes promoted by bifunctional thiourea compounds derived from cinchona alkaloids, affording chiral pyrrolidine derivatives 13 with multisubstitutions. Catalyst lm delivered the best results in terms of catalytic activity, diastereoselectivity and enantioselectivity. Nevertheless, only moderate ee values could be obtained while the diastereoselectivities were generally good (Scheme 10.18) [22]. 

---