Angewandte
Chemie
DOI: 10.1002/anie.200901299
Synthetic Methods
Highly Substituted Furo[3,4-d][1,2]oxazines: Gold-Catalyzed
Regiospecific and Diastereoselective 1,3-Dipolar Cycloaddition of
2-(1-Alkynyl)-2-alken-1-ones with Nitrones**
Feng Liu, Yihua Yu, and Junliang Zhang*
Dedicated to Professor Li-Xin Dai on the occasion of his 85th birthday
Heterocyclic structures are core components of many natural
products and man-made synthetic drugs. The design and
synthesis of novel heterocyclic compounds with high effi-
ciency is, therefore, highly desirable. 1,3-Dipolar cycloaddi-
tion reactions, which can provide rapid access to heterocyclic
compounds in a convergent and efficient manner, have
attracted the interest of many chemists.
report a gold(I)-catalyzed[13] 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of 2-(1-
alkynyl)-2-alken-1-ones with nitrones, which provides a
practical, efficient, regiospecific, and highly diastereoselective
route to novel heterobicyclic highly substituted furo[3,4-d]-
[1,2]-oxazines.
During our research on the synthesis and reactivity of 2-
(1-alkynyl)-2-alken-1-ones 1,[10,11] we became interested in the
metal-catalyzed 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction of 1 with
the nitrones 2. We envisaged that this reaction might provide
three different types of adducts (Figure 1): 1) isoxazolidines 3
by a 1,3-dipolar [3+2] cycloaddition of nitrones with the
olefin moiety of 1;[12] 2) 2,3-dihydroisoxazoles 4 by a 1,3-
dipolar [3+2] cycloaddition of nitrones with the alkyne
moiety of 1; and 3) novel heterobicyclic furo[3,4-d]-
[1,2]oxazines 5 by a 1,3-dipolar [3+3] cycloaddition (tandem
double cyclizations) of nitrone with 1.
We began by examining the cycloaddition reaction of
ketone 1a with nitrone 2a in the presence of different metal
catalysts (see Table 1 in the Supporting Information). After
many attempts, we found that the reaction proceeded very
well in CH2Cl2 at room temperature in the presence of
2.5 mol% of Ph3PAuOTf; after a reaction time of 20 minutes
(3S*,8aR*)-furo[3,4-d,e][1,2]oxazine 5aa was isolated in 93%
yield with a greater than 99:1 diastereoselectivity, which was
determined by the 1H NMR analysis of the crude product. In
addition, the reaction was very clean and a [3+2] cycloadduct
was not formed, indicating that this transformation is
regiospecific and chemospecific. The configuration of 5aa
was confirmed by the single-crystal X-ray diffraction analy-
sis.[14] Surprisingly, other commonly used metal catalysts such
as Sc(OTf)3, Sn(OTf)2, Cu(OTf)2, Yb(OTf)3, Y(OTf)3, In-
(OTf)3, and Ni(ClO4)2·6H2O showed almost no catalytic
activity, even at elevated reaction temperatures (408C).
AgOTf and AuCl3 also catalyzed this transformation but
gave lower product yields. Changing to solvents such as
MeCN, THF, or toluene failed to improve the reaction.
To determine the scope of this transformation, various
ketones 1 were examined (Scheme 1). The reactions of both
the cyclic substrates 1a–c and acyclic substrates 1d–i with
various nitrones 2a–f proceeded to afford the corresponding
highly substituted furo[3,4-d][1,2]oxazines 5 in good to
excellent yields with up to > 99:1 diastereoselectivity (reac-
tion time 30 min). The olefinic and cyclopropyl substitutents
on 1b and 1c, respectively, did not affect the reaction. The R1
and R2 substitutents of 1 have larger effects on the diaste-
reoselectivity of the reaction than the R3 group of 1. The
configuration of the cycloadducts derived from acyclic
Despite various metal-catalyzed methods developed for
the synthesis of highly substituted furan compounds from
various cyclic or acyclic precursors in past years,[1] it is still a
challenge to efficiently assemble novel 3,4-fused bicyclic
furans,[1j,2] especially from acyclic precursors. Furthermore,
1,2-oxazines are frequently found as structural skeletons in
biologically active compounds[3] and as valuable synthetic
building blocks in organic synthesis.[4] Among the many
methods developed in past years to construct 1,2-oxazines,[5]
the 1,3-dipolar [3+3] cycloaddition of nitrones[6] is a partic-
ularly effective one. For example, Kerr and co-workers[7]
reported an efficient [3+3] cycloaddition of donor–acceptor
cyclopropanes with nitrones leading to tetrahydro-1,2-oxa-
zines under Lewis acid catalysis. The enantioselective version
of this transformation was later accomplished by Sibi et al.[8a]
and Tang and co-workers.[8b] Recently, Shintani, Hayashi, and
co-workers[9] described an asymmetric and efficient palla-
dium-catalyzed [3+3] cycloaddition of trimethylene methane
derivatives with nitrones leading to 1,2-oxazines. Herein we
[*] F. Liu, Prof. Dr. J. Zhang
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Green Chemistry and Chemical
Processes, Department of Chemistry
East China Normal University
3663 N. Zhongshan Road, Shanghai 200062 (P.R. China)
Fax: (+86)21-6223-5039
E-mail: jlzhang@chem.ecnu.edu.cn
Prof. Y. Yu
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance
Department of Physics, East China Normal University (P.R. China)
Prof. Dr. J. Zhang
State Key Laboratory of Organometallic Chemistry, Shanghai
Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences
354 Fenglin Road, Shanghai 200032 (P.R. China)
[**] Financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (20702015), the Science and Technology Commission of
Shanghai Municipality (07DZ22937), Shanghai Shuguang Program
(07SG27), Shanghai Pujiang Program (07pj14039), and Shanghai
Leading Academic Discipline Project (B409) is greatly appreciated.
Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2009, 48, 5505 –5508
ꢀ 2009 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
5505