COMMUNICATION
DOI: 10.1002/chem.201000094
Chiral Squaramides as Highly Enantioselective Catalysts for Michael
Addition Reactions of 4-Hydroxycoumarins and 4-Hydroxypyrone to b,g-
Unsaturated a-Keto Esters
Dan-Qian Xu,[a] Yi-Feng Wang,[a] Wei Zhang,[a] Shu-Ping Luo,[a] Ai-Guo Zhong,[b]
Ai-Bao Xia,[a] and Zhen-Yuan Xu*[a]
Coumarin derivatives are an important class of com-
pounds found in a variety of natural products and bioactive
molecules and are used as versatile intermediates in organic
and natural-product synthesis.[1] Consequently, several ap-
proaches have been taken to develop catalytic, enantioselec-
tive modifications of coumarins, which are reported to have
various biological activities, such as antimalarial, antibacteri-
al, anticoagulant, and anti-HIV activities.[2] Recently, the or-
ganocatalytic, asymmetric Michael addition of 4-hydroxy-
coumarin to a,b-unsaturated ketones and aldehydes through
iminum ion catalysis by chiral amines to afford a highly
atom-economic procedure for the formation of optically
active coumarins was reported.[3]
Squaramide derivatives have been intensively investigated
within the area of molecular recognition because of their
strong hydrogen-bonding activity.[4] However, applications
of squaramide derivatives for electrophilic activation by hy-
drogen bonding in enantioselective reactions appear scarce
compared with their corresponding thioureas, which were
recognized as a “privileged” platform for dual hydrogen-
bonding catalysis over the past decade.[5,6] Very recently, the
utility of chiral squaramides as organocatalysts was disclosed
by Rawalꢀs group for the conjugate-addition reaction of 1,3-
dicarbonyl compounds to nitroolefins, which benefit from
squaramideꢀs characteristic dual hydrogen-bonding catalysis,
in which the two hydrogen atoms are further apart than
those in thioureas.[7]
Herein, we describe the development of a squaramide-
promoted, asymmetric Michael addition of 4-hydroxycou-
marins and a 4-hydroxypyrone to b,g-unsaturated a-keto
esters.[8] The corresponding adducts of these chiral coumarin
derivatives are of particular interest, since they not only ex-
hibit highly reactive carbonyl functionalities, but also can be
readily modified to form various functional groups. We
postulated that b,g-unsaturated a-keto esters, which are
electrophiles with two adjacent carbonyl groups connected
by a two-carbon link, could be suitably activated and orien-
tated by squaramide, as its two acidic hydrogen atoms are
also separated by a two-carbon link. Satisfactorily, the orga-
nocatalytic process is effective for both 4-hydroxycoumarins
and the analogous 4-hydroxypyrone to afford highly optical-
ly enriched compounds (up to 99% ee) in good yields by
using easy-to-prepare chiral squaramides as catalysts with
low catalyst loadings.
The addition of 4-hydroxycoumarin 1a to the a-keto ester
2a was used as a test reaction to explore the feasibility of
the enantioselective Michael addition reaction catalyzed by
chiral, tertiary-aminosquaramide-based derivatives I and
IIa–d (Scheme 1). As shown in Table 1, the preliminary re-
sults revealed that, in the presence of the diaminocyclohex-
ane-derived squaramide catalyst I (Table 1, entry 1), the re-
action proceeded smoothly to yield the desired Michael
adduct 3aa in good yield (77%) with moderate ee (75%)
within a short reaction time (3 h). Changing an amine
moiety to a cinchona alkaloid framework to form the epi-
quinine-derived squaramide catalysts IIa and b increased
the enantioselectivities to 90 and 86% ee, respectively
(Table 1, entries 2 and 3). Catalysts also containing chiral
substituents on the other end of the squaramide (IIc and d)
resulted in even higher yields and enantioselectivities
(Table 1, entries 4 and 5). In contrast, the reaction per-
[a] Prof. Dr. D.-Q. Xu, Y.-F. Wang, W. Zhang, Dr. S.-P. Luo, A.-B. Xia,
Prof. Z.-Y. Xu
State Key Laboratory Breeding Base of
Green Chemistry—Synthesis Technology
Zhejiang University of Technology
Hangzhou 310014 (China)
Fax : (+86)571-88320066
[b] Dr. A.-G. Zhong
Department of Pharmaceutical and Chemical Engineering
Taizhou College, Linhai Zhejiang 317000 (China)
Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW
Chem. Eur. J. 2010, 16, 4177 – 4180
ꢁ 2010 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
4177