Diastereoselective Transformations

A catalytic enantio- and diastereoselective dihydroxylation procedure without the assistance of a directing functional group (like the allylic alcohol group in the Sharpless epox-idation) has also been developed by K.B. Sharpless (E.N. Jacobsen, 1988 H.-L. Kwong, 1990 B.M. Kim, 1990 H. Waldmann, 1992). It uses osmium tetroxide as a catalytic oxidant (as little as 20 ppm to date) and two readily available cinchona alkaloid diastereomeis, namely the 4-chlorobenzoate esters or bulky aryl ethers of dihydroquinine and dihydroquinidine (cf. p. 290% as stereosteering reagents (structures of the Os complexes see R.M. Pearlstein, 1990). The transformation lacks the high asymmetric inductions of the Sharpless epoxidation, but it is broadly applicable and insensitive to air and water. Further improvements are to be expected. 

There are a number of powerful synthetic reactions which join two trigonal carbons to form a CC single bond in a stereocontrolled way under proper reaction conditions. Included in this group are the aldol, Michael, Claisen rearrangement, ene and metalloallyl-carbonyl addition reactions. The corresponding transforms are powerfully stereosimplifying, especially when rendered enantioselective as well as diastereoselective by the use of chiral controller groups. Some examples are listed in Chart 20. 

Reduce stereochemical complexity and molecular size concurrently by applying diastereoselective or enantioselective transforms which are also disconnective. 

There has been recent interest in naphtho-fused dithiepines as chiral acyl anion equivalents, particularly since the starting dithiol 128 can be obtained in enan-tiomerically pure form (89TL2575). This is transformed using standard methods into the dithiepine 129, but showed only moderate diastereoselectivity in its addition to carbonyl compounds. On the other hand, as we have seen previously for other systems, formation of the 2-acyl compound 130 and reduction or addition of a Grignard reagent gave the products 131 with much better stereoselectivity (91JOC4467). 

Simple diastereoselection has also been reported for Strecker syntheses using pentanedial or butanedial with primary amines or hydrogen cyanide which affords 2,5-dicyanopiperidine or 2,5-dicyanopyrrolidine derivatives, respectively35. In both cases, the achiral svn-diastereomers are slightly preferred. At 70 °C, the pure rA-compounds can be partially transformed to the /rfflM-isomcrs. 

Due to the high a-C,H acidity in the alkoxyethylidene complexes 6 (e.g.,piCa=8 (R=Me)) [ 16], transformations via an enolate analog are possible and have been used to introduce additional functionality into the carbene side chain to access various Fischer carbene complexes [3]. The a,/J-unsaturated complex 8 could be obtained from 6 (R=Et) by an aldol-type condensation with benzaldehyde 7 in the presence of triethylamine and trimethylsilyl chloride (Scheme 2) [17]. This reaction proceeds completely diastereoselectively to yield only the trans-isomer. Analogously, binuclear complexes have been prepared from 6 and 1,3-and 1,4-phthaldialdehyde in good yields [17]. This type of condensation has... 

An attractive alternative to these novel aminoalcohol type modifiers is the use of 1-(1-naphthyl)ethylamine (NEA, Fig. 5) and derivatives thereof as chiral modifiers [45-47]. Trace quantities of (R)- or (S)-l-(l-naphthyl)ethylamine induce up to 82% ee in the hydrogenation of ethyl pyruvate over Pt/alumina. Note that naphthylethylamine is only a precursor of the actual modifier, which is formed in situ by reductive alkylation of NEA with the reactant ethyl pyruvate. This transformation (Fig. 5), which proceeds via imine formation and subsequent reduction of the C=N bond, is highly diastereoselective (d.e. >95%). Reductive alkylation of NEA with different aldehydes or ketones provides easy access to a variety of related modifiers [47]. The enantioselection occurring with the modifiers derived from NEA could be rationalized with the same strategy of molecular modelling as demonstrated for the Pt-cinchona system. 

Bode and co-workers have extended the synthetic ntility of homoenolates to the formation of enantiomerically enriched IV-protected y-butyrolactams 169 from saccharin-derived cyclic sulfonylimines 167. While racemic products have been prepared from a range of P-alkyl and P-aryl substitnted enals and substitnted imi-nes, only a single example of an asymmetric variant has been shown, affording the lactam prodnct 169 with good levels of enantioselectivity and diastereoselectivity (Scheme 12.36) [71], As noted in the racemic series (see Section 12.2.2), two mechanisms have been proposed for this type of transformation, either by addition of a homoenolate to the imine or via an ene-type mechanism. 

A recently developed application of the Ramberg-Backlund reaction is the synthesis of C-glycosides. The required thioethers can be prepared easily by exchange with a thiol. The application of the Ramberg-Backlund conditions then leads to an exocyclic vinyl ether that can be reduced to the C-nucleoside.95 Entries 3 and 4 in Scheme 10.6 are examples. The vinyl ether group can also be transformed in other ways. In the synthesis of partial structures of the antibiotic altromycin, the vinyl ether product was subjected to diastereoselective hydroboration. 

Several synthetic transformations that are parts of total syntheses of natural products are summarized by retrosynthetic outlines. For each retrosynthetic transform suggest a reagent or short reaction sequence that could accomplish the forward synthetic conversion. The proposed route should be diastereoselective but need not be enantioselective. 

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