1,5-Dipolar electrocyclization of acyl-substituted 'thiocarbonyl-ylides' to 1,3-oxathioles

Article abstract of DOI:10.1002/hlca.19960790327

The reaction of α-diazoketones 15a, b with 4,4-disubstituted 1,3-thiazole-5(4H)-thiones 6 (Scheme 3), adamantanethione (17), 2,2,4,4-tetramethyl-3-thioxocyclobutanone (19; Scheme 4), and thiobenzophenone (22; Scheme 5), respectively, at 50-90° gave the corresponding 1,3-oxathiole derivatives as the sole products in high yields. This reaction opens a convenient access to this type of five-membered heterocycles. The structures of three of the products, namely 16c, 16f, and 20b, were established by X-ray crystallography The key-step of the proposed reaction mechanism is a 1,5-dipolar electrocyclization of an acyl-substituted 'thiocarbonyl-ylide' (cf. Scheme 6). The analogous reaction of 15a, b with 9H-xanthen-9-thione (24a) and 9H-thioxanthen-9-thione (24b) yielded α,β-unsaturated ketones of type 25 (Scheme 5). The structures of 25a and 25c were also established by X-ray crystallography. The formation of 25 proceeds via a 1,3-dipolar electrocyclization to a thiirane intermediate (Scheme 6) and desulfurization. From the reaction of 15a with 24b in THF at 50°, the intermediate 26 (Scheme 5) was isolated. In the crude mixtures of the reactions of 15a with 17 and 19, a minor product containing a CHO group was observed by IR and NMR spectroscopy. In the case of 19, this side product could be isolated and was characterized by X-ray crystallography to be 21 (Scheme 4). It was shown that 21 is formed - in relatively low yield - from 20a. Formally, the transformation is an oxidative cleavage of the C=C bond, but the reaction mechanism is still not known.