Ylide compounds enantioselective syntheses

Sulfur ylides are a classic reagent for the conversion of carbonyl compounds to epoxides. Chiral camphor-derived sulfur ylides have been used in the enantioselective synthesis of epoxy-amides <06JA2105>. Reaction of sulfonium salt 12 with an aldehyde and base provides the epoxide 13 in generally excellent yields. While the yield of the reaction was quite good across a variety of R groups, the enantioselectivity was variable. For example benzaldehyde provides 13 (R = Ph) in 97% ee while isobutyraldehyde provides 13 (R = i-Pr) with only 10% ee. These epoxy amides could be converted to a number of epoxide-opened... 

Perlmutter used an oxymercuration/demercuration of a y-hydroxy alkene as the key transformation in an enantioselective synthesis of the C(8 ) epimeric smaller fragment of lb (and many more pamamycin homologs cf. Fig. 1) [36]. Preparation of substrate 164 for the crucial cyclization event commenced with silylation and reduction of hydroxy ester 158 (85-89% ee) [37] to give aldehyde 159, which was converted to alkenal 162 by (Z)-selective olefination with ylide 160 (dr=89 l 1) and another diisobutylaluminum hydride reduction (Scheme 22). An Oppolzer aldol reaction with boron enolate 163 then provided 164 as the major product. Upon successive treatment of 164 with mercury(II) acetate and sodium chloride, organomercurial compound 165 and a second minor diastereomer (dr=6 l) were formed, which could be easily separated. Reductive demercuration, hydrolytic cleavage of the chiral auxiliary, methyl ester formation, and desilylation eventually led to 166, the C(8 ) epimer of the... 

Cooperative catalysis in multi-component reactions highly enantioselective synthesis of y-hydroxyketones with a quaternary carbon stereocenter, (b) X. Han, M. Gan, H. Qin, J. Ji, X. Zhang, L. Jiang, W. Hu, Synlett 2011, 1717-1722. Trapping of oxonium ylides with Michael acceptors highly diastereoselective three-component reactions of diazo compounds with alcohols and ben-zylidene Meldrum s acids/4-oxo-enoates. 

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... 

Later on, Waldmann s group described a novel highly enantioselective method for the synthesis of an iridoid-inspired compound collection by the kinetic resolution of racemic 2//-pyran-3(6//)-one derivatives by means of an asymmetric [3+2] cycloaddition with azomethine ylides using this catalytic system (Scheme 15) [27]. The desired products were formed efficiently with high stereoselectivity and led to the discovery of a new class of inhibitors of the Wnt and hedgehog signaling pathways. 

Besides the synthesis of monocyclic compounds, the 1,3-DC reaction also plays an important role for the constmction of fused heterocyclic compounds such as 132 (Scheme 2.34). For instance, in 2005 Carretero and coworkers developed a novel in situ generated 133-Cu(I) catalyst system, which showed excellent performance in asymmetric 1,3-DC reactions of azomethine ylides derived from 130. High to excellent levels of reactivity, endo/exo selectivity, and enantioselectivity could be obtained with a wide variety of azomethine ylides and dipolarophiles such as 131 with 0.5-3 mol% of catalyst loadings [50]. 

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