propargylation of aldehydes remains a challenge. Some of
these methods suffer from difficulties associated with low
regioselectivity (competing allenylation) and/or reactivity.
In some instances, the protocol requires the use of toxic
reagents, such as tin compounds.
effectively to the putative hypervalent silicate complex.12,13
In light of this observation, we were interested in exploring
the reactivity of allenyltrichlorosilane in Lewis base-
catalyzed addition to aldehydes since it represents a more
challenging substrate as mentioned above.
Chiral Lewis base catalysis of polychlorosilane-mediated
transformations was pioneered by Denmark and co-workers,
and such Lewis base catalysts have been shown to promote
several synthetically useful reactions, providing valuable
implication for further study.7 Allenyltrichlorosilane is an
attractive candidate as a nucleophilic partner in CdO and
CdN propargylation reactions because of its mildness, re-
giospecificity, and low toxicity, although it is considerably
less reactive than analogous allyltrichlorosilane.8,9 However,
to our knowledge, the report by Nakajima and co-workers is
the only example of the use of this reagent in asymmetric
catalysis (20 mol % of axial chiral 3,30-dimethyl-2,20-
biquinoline N,N0-dioxide,10 35-65% yields, 23-52%
ees).11a Herein, we report the discovery of a new bidentate
Lewis base that efficiently catalyzes the addition of alle-
nyltrichlorosilane toaromatic aldehydes with highlevels of
enantioselectivity and yields. The proposed stereochemical
models that account for the observed levels and trends in
enantioselectivity are provided.
Table 1. Evaluation of Catalystsa
entry
cat.
temp (°C)
time (h)
yield (%)b
eec
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
-78
-40
-20
-20
-20
-78
24
24
24
24
24
3
7
48
80
85
90
99
68
54
48
48
34
84
1
1
2
3
4d
Recently, we reported that helical chiral pyridine
N-oxides 1-3 (Table 1) efficiently activate SiCl4, and the
chirality of an helicene can indeed be communicated
a Allenyltrichlorosilane (1.5 equiv) was used. b Yield of the isolated
product. c Ee value was determined by HPLC analysis on a chiral phase.
d See Scheme 1.
(5) For selected references, see: (a) Hanawa, H.; Uraguchi, D.;
Konishi, S.; Hashimoto, T.; Maruoka, K. Chem.;Eur. J. 2003, 9,
4405–4413. (b) Konishi, S.; Hanawa, H.; Maruoka, K. Tetrahedron:
Asymmetry 2003, 14, 1603–1605. (c) Yu, C.-M.; Kim, J.-M.; Shin, M.- S.;
Cho, D. Tetrahedron Lett. 2003, 44, 5487–5490. (d) Evans, D. A.;
Sweeney, Z. K.; Rovis, V; Tedrow, J. S. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2001, 123,
12095–12096. (e) Denmark, S. E.; Wynn, T. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2001, 123,
6199–6200. (f) Yu, C.-M.; Yoon, S.-K.; Choi, H.-S.; Baek, K. Chem.
Commun. 1997, 763–764. (g) Keck, G. E.; Krishnamurthy, D.; Chen, X.
Tetrahedron Lett. 1994, 55, 8323–8324.
Scheme 1. Synthesis of a New Bidentate Catalyst
(6) (a) Fandrick, D. R.; Fandrick, K. R.; Reeves, J. T.; Tan, Z.; Tang,
W.; Capacci, A. G.; Rodriguez, S.; Song, J. J.; Lee, H.; Yee, N. K.;
Senanayake, C. H. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2010, 132, 7600–7601. For a
related copper catalyzed asymmetric propargylation of ketones, see:
(b) Shi, S.-L.; Xu, L.-W.; Oisaki, K.; Kanai, M.; Shibasaki, M. J. Am.
Chem. Soc. 2010, 132, 6638–6639.
(7) For selected reviews, see: (a) Denmark, S. E.; Beutner, G. L.
Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2008, 47, 1560–1638. (b) Benaglia, M.; Guizzetti,
S.; Pignataro, L. Coord. Chem. Rev. 2008, 252, 492–512. (c) Malkov,
A. V.; Kocovsky, P. Eur. J. Org. Chem. 2007, 29–36. (d) Orito, Y.;
Nakajima, M Synthesis 2006, 9, 1391–1401.
(8) (a) Schneider, U.; Sugiura, M.; Kobayashi, S. Adv. Synth. Catal.
2006, 348, 323–329. (b) Schneider, U.; Sugiura, M.; Kobayashi, S.
Tetrahedron 2006, 62, 496–502. (c) Kobayashi, S.; Nishio, K. J. Am.
Chem. Soc. 1995, 117, 6392–6393.
(9) For discussions, see: (a) Curtis-Long, M. J.; Aye, Y. Chem.;Eur.
J. 2009, 15, 5402–5416. (b) Denmark, S. E.; Fu, J. Chem. Rev. 2003, 103,
2763–2793. Allenylstannanes are considerably less reactive than allyl-
stannanes. see:(c) Lequan, M.; Guillerm, et G. J. Organomet. Chem.
1973, 54, 153–164.
We initiated our investigation by evaluating the reaction
ofallenyltrichlorosilane withbenzaldehydeusing catalyst1
(Table 1). To our delight, 1 did catalyze the reaction and
provided the product with good enantioselectivity
although the yield was poor (entry 1). Higher reaction
temperature was necessary to increase the yield, but it
adversely affected the enantioselectivity (entries 2 and 3).
Sterically less demanding catalysts 2 and 3 did not improve
the reactivity much (entries 4 and 5). Mechanistically, this
reaction is thought to involve coordination of one or two
Lewis bases to allenyltrichlorosilane to generate a more
Lewis acidic species capable of activating aldehyde toward
propargylation, analogous to other reactions involving
Lewis bases and polychlorosilanes.14 Thus, the reaction
(10) 3,30-Dimethyl-2,20-biquinoline NN0-dioxide developed by
Nakajima and co-workers is among the most successful catalysts
reported to date for allylation of aldehydes with allyltrichlorosilane.
(a) Nakajima, M.; Saito, M.; Shiro, M.; Hashimoto, S. J. Am. Chem.
Soc. 1998, 120, 6419–6420. Also see(b) Malkov, A. V.; Bell, M.;
Castelluzzo, F.; Kocovsky, P. Org. Lett. 2005, 7, 3219–3222 and ref 7c.
(11) (a) Nakajima, M.; Saito, M.; Hashimoto, S. Tetrahedron: Asym-
metry 2002, 13, 2449–2452. For a related allenylation of aldehydes, see:
(b) Iseki, K.; Kuroki, Y.; Kobayashi, Y. Tetrahedron: Asymmetry 1998,
9, 2889–2894.
(13) For azahelicenes as asymmetric catalysts, see: (a) Takenaka, N.;
Chen, J.; Captain, B.; Sarangthem, R. S.; Chandrakumar, A. J. Am.
Chem. Soc. 2010, 132, 4536–4537. (b) Samai, M.; MiSek, J.; Stara, I. G.;
Stary, I. Collect. Czech. Chem. Commun. 2009, 74, 1151–1159.
(12) (a) Chen, J.; Takenaka, N. Chem.;Eur. J. 2009, 15, 7268–7276.
(b) Takenaka, N.; Sarangthem, R. S.; Captain, B. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed.
2008, 47, 9708–9710.
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