Yoo et al.
JOCArticle
possible by avoiding the oxidative addition of organohalides
to palladium(0) species. Due to these advantages, the palla-
dium(II) catalyzed organoboron-mediated Heck-type reac-
tions with Cu(OAc)21a,5 and molecular oxygen6 as oxidants
have recently been reported. However, the challenges of the
asymmetric oxidative palladium catalyzed Heck-type reac-
tions of organoborons have not been well studied.7
metal-ligand complexes than common bidentate ligands.
Therefore, newly designed tridentate ligands would afford
higher enantioselectivities by keeping stereocontrol elements
locked in place during the entire catalytic processes. On the
basis of these criteria, we designed and synthesized the NHC
ligand 1, which is composed of benzimidazole and a chiral
amino alcohol. We then produced their corresponding chiral
silver complexes, which underwent transpalladation to give
monomeric NHC-Pd complexes 2 and dimeric catalysts 3.9
Surprisingly, we found that the cross-coupling reaction of
4-methoxy phenylboronic acid and methyl tiglate by triden-
tate Pd complex 2 and 3 gave drastically different enantio-
selectivities as depicted in eq 2.9 While the dimeric chiral
NHC-Pd complex 3 gave excellent enantioselective rearran-
gement product, the monomeric NHC-Pd complex 2 gave
poor selectivity. Herein, we wish to discuss our rationale and
transition states to account for the observed high enantio-
selection using dimeric tridentate chiral NHC-Pd complexes.
In addition, we would like to disclose various cases of
asymmetric oxidative Heck-type reactions, as our previous
publication focused mainly on these catalysts and reported
only a few examples of successful coupling reactions. In
particular, arylboronic acids coupled easily with both acyclic
and cyclic alkenes.
Several approaches to asymmetric oxidative Heck reac-
tions that are initiated by transmetalation of organoborons
have been reported in the past several years. Mikami et al.
have employed a palladium(II)-chiraphos ligand system that
is catalytically active in inter- and intramolecular oxidative
boron Heck-type coupling reactions,7a,d and Gelman et al.
demonstrated a protocol for the enantioselective palladium-
(II)-catalyzed Heck-type reaction between arylboronic acids
and 2,3-dihydrofuran in the presence of an (R)-BINAP
ligand.7b In addition, we have succeeded in developing
intermolecular asymmetric oxidative boron Heck-type reac-
tions between arylboronic acids and acyclic trisubstituted
alkenes assisted by a chiral PyOX ligand-palladium(II)
complex under an oxygen atmosphere.7c In this study, we
observed that nonchelated free palladium catalysts played
a critical role in racemic couplings that resulted in low
enantioselectivities under commonly used premixed condi-
tions, demonstrating the significance of utilizing a preformed
tight well-bound palladium(II)-ligand complex.
To develop a tighter chiral palladium(II)-ligand complex,
we considered the use of an N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) as
a ligand due to its ability to strongly coordinate to transition
metals.8 We also envisioned that tridentate ligands including
an NHC, amidate, and alkoxide would constitute stronger
Results and Discussion
According to recent reports, highly enantioselective asym-
metric Heck reactions have been observed in a number of
intramolecular Heck-type cyclizations; however, intermole-
cular reactions have thus far given poor enantioselectivities
except when using cyclic olefins such as dihydrofuran and
dihydropyrrole.10 While extensively investigating carbon-
carbon bond formation with oxidative Pd(II) catalysis of
organoborons, we found that the cross-coupling reaction of
4-methoxyphenyl boronic acid (4) and methyl tiglate (5) in
the presence of the novel chiral NHC-Pd(II) complex 3a
produced the rearrangement compound 6 exclusively, gen-
erating a new stereogenic center. Under an O2 atmosphere
(1 atm), this reaction gave methyl 2-methylene-3-(4-meth-
oxyphenyl)butanoate (6) in 52% yield (cross-coupling compound)
with 4-methoxyphenol (43%, deboronylation) and a small
amount of the corresponding biaryl compound (2%, homo-
coupled compound) (Table 1, entry 1). More importantly, it was
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Org. Lett. 2001, 3, 3313. (b) Xiong, D.-C.; Zhang, L.-H.; Ye, X.-S. Org. Lett.
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2003, 5, 2231. (b) Andappan, M. M. S.; Nilsson, P.; Von Schenck, H.;
Larhed, M. J. Org. Chem. 2004, 69, 5212. (c) Andappan, M. M. S.; Nilsson,
P.; Larhed, M. Chem. Commun. 2004, 218. (d) Yoon, C. H.; Yoo, K. S.; Yi,
S. W.; Mishra, R. K.; Jung, K. W. Org. Lett. 2004, 6, 4037. (e) Yoo, K. S.;
Yoon, C. H.; Jung, K. W. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2006, 128, 16384. (f) Lindh, J.;
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