Ylide compounds enantioselective additions

Nakajima also developed an enantioselective addition of lithium acet-ylides to ketones in the presence of chiral lithium binaphtholate catalyst 8 (Scheme 2.7). This is the first example of the catalytic enantioselective addition of lithium acelylides to carhonyl compounds without the aid of other metal sources, such as titanium(iv) and zinc(n) species. 

Chiral epoxides frequently play a key role as intermediates in organic synthesis and the development of methods for the catalytic asymmetric synthesis of such compounds therefore remains an area of intensive research. Methods have focused principally on the asymmetric electrophilic oxidation of alkenes and good enantioselectivity has been achieved [1]. An alternative to oxidative processes for the synthesis of epoxides is the reaction of sulfur ylides with aldehydes and ketones [2,3,4,5,6]. Sulfur ylide epoxidation is a carbon-carbon bond forming reaction and is complementary to oxidative methods. The standard conditions for this reaction utilize the original Corey method treatment of a sulfonium salt with a strong base in the presence of or followed by the addition of an aldehyde... 

In catalytic epoxidation reactions an alternative to the ylide generation method via alkylation/deprotonation is the transition metal-mediated carbene transfer from diazo compounds to sulfide catalysts. In 1994, Aggarwal and coworkers employed this method in the enantioselective catalytic epoxidation of aldehydes [25]. Using 20mol% of non-racemic sulfide 17 and lmol% of Rh2(OAc)4 together with the slow addition of PhCHN2, a 58% yield and 11% ee were obtained in the epoxidation of benzaldehyde (Scheme 20.10). The enantioselectivity was similar to the results obtained by Breau and Durst using preformed sulfonium salts [26]. 

The introduction of the activated allylic bromides and Morita-Baylis-HiUman acetates and carbonates pioneered the development of a number of phosphine-catalyzed reactions in subsequent years [45]. Interestingly, the asymmetric variant of this type of transformation only appeared in the literature seven years later. In 2010, Tang, Zhou, and coworkers disclosed a highly enantioselective intramolecular ylide [3-1-2] annulation using spirobiindane-based phosphine catalyst 31 (Scheme 20.27). BINAP was found inactive in this reaction even at an elevated temperature (70°C). Notably, both optically active benzobicyclo[4.3.0] compounds 32 and 32 with three continuous stereogenic centers could be obtained as major products in high yields and stereoselectivities just by a choice of an additive [Ti(OPr )4], which can block the isomerization of the double bond [46]. 

In 2008, Zhang et al. succeeded in a three-component cascade reaction using achiral Ru and chiral Zr catalysis [14]. Under the influence of achiral Rh(OAc)j, oxonium ylide was generated from diazo compound 37 and alcohol 38. Consequently, this reactive intermediate was trapped by aldehyde 39 through a Lewis acid-promoted enantioselective aldol-type addition, yielding the chiral building blocks 40 with high levels of stereocontrol (Scheme 9.11). It should be noted that the presence of acidic Zr catalyst can also suppress the undesired irreversible intramolecular proton transfer of the oxonium ylide to benefit reaction pathway control. 

---