Communications
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201005215
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C H Activation
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Enantioselective Rhodium-Catalyzed Allylic C H Activation for the
Addition to Conjugated Dienes**
Qian Li and Zhi-Xiang Yu*
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Transition-metal-catalyzed C H activation has the potential
to streamline organic synthesis because it can provide novel
disconnections in the retrosynthetic analysis of a target
For enantioselective allylic C H oxidations, White and co-
workers[16a,b] achieved a 63% ee for the palladium(II)-cata-
lyzed allylic oxygenation of terminal olefins.[16c–g] Even though
it is challenging to achieve asymmetric sp C H activation
with high enantioselectivity, considering its synthetic impor-
tance, continuous endeavors to meet such a challenge are
required.
molecule.[1,2] A synthetically useful C H activation method
should be diastereoselective and more importantly, enantio-
selective, if one or more stereocenter is generated in this
process. Although significant progress has been made in
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transition-metal-catalyzed C H activation reactions, the
Recently, our research group has developed a conjugated-
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progress of enantioselective C H activation and subsequent
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diene-assisted, rhodium-catalyzed addition of allylic C H
[3]
C C bond formations through metal insertion has lagged
bonds to conjugated dienes to furnish multifunctional tetra-
hydropyrrole, tetrahydrofuran, and cyclopentane compounds.
The two new stereogenic centers in the final products had
good to excellent diastereoselectivity (see the reaction shown
in Table 1).[17] We were eager to develop an asymmetric
behind.[4] Several impressive examples in this area have
emerged. For example, the research groups of Mikami,[5]
Murai,[6] and Bergman and Ellman[7] have all reported
pioneering work on the enantioselective coupling reactions
of vinylic and aromatic C H bonds with alkenes. Enantio-
selective hydroacylation reactions of alkenes and ketones
[8]
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version of this allylic C H activation/C C bond formation
reaction, which would provide efficient and easy access to the
multifunctional chiral tetrahydropyrrole, tetrahydrofuran,
and cyclopentane compounds. The two challenges for this
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through the cleavage of an acyl C H bond have also been
reported.[9] Yu and co-workers have developed an elegant
palladium(II)-catalyzed enantioselective coupling reaction of
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enantioselective reaction are the asymmetric allylic C H
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aromatic C H bonds with boronic acids and styrenes using a
activation/C C bond formation, and the asymmetric synthesis
desymmetrization strategy.[10a,b] By using a similar approach,
Albicker and Cramer achieved enantioselective palladium-
catalyzed direct arylations.[10c] Despite these notable advances
of a quaternary carbon center, which has been a longstanding
challenge in organic synthesis.[18] Herein, we report the first
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example of a highly enantioselective allylic C H activation/
C C bond formation reaction through metal insertion. We
in the enantioselective sp2 C H activation reactions, the
[3]
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enantioselective sp3 C H activation/C C bond formation
through the intermediate formation of carbon–metal bonds
remains elusive.[11–15] The lack of progress may be attributed
show that the present reaction provides an easy route to the
asymmetric synthesis of two adjacent sp3 carbon centers, one
of which is a quaternary carbon center.
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to the limited methods for sp3 C H activation, the harsh
Our study began with the identification of an effective
chiral ligand for the target reaction (Table 1). We found that
chelating diphosphines such as binap inhibited the reaction,
therefore we focused our effort on screening the monodentate
ligands. Chiral phosphoramidites,[19] which are a class of easily
accessible and highly modulable ligands, were tested. Fortu-
nately, the application of phosphoramidite ligand Aunder our
previous reaction conditions gave a high yield and a promising
ee value (Table 1, entry 1). This encouraging result led us to
further optimize the reaction conditions. We observed that
changing the silver source from AbSbF6 to AgOTf improved
the enantioselectivity (entry 2). Better enantioselectivity was
obtained when DME or benzene were used as the solvent
(entries 3 and 4, respectively) compared with DCE (entry 2),
although the reaction in benzene was slower. The use of
[{Rh(coe)2Cl}2] as a catalyst precursor provided a faster
reaction rate (entry 5), presumably as a result of the faster
dissociation of the coe ligand from the catalyst precursor.
Next, we tested a variety of phosphoramidite ligands. A slight
increase of the steric bulk on the nitrogen center improved
the ee value, for example, phosphoramidites bearing diethyl
amine (B), diisopropyl amine (C), piperidine (D), and
morpholine (E) gave 90%, 89%, 87%, and 90% ee, respec-
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reaction conditions required for the cleavage of an sp C H
bond, and the paucity of ligands available for enantioselective
C H activations. One example of an enantioselective sp C
H activation/C C bond formation came from Yu and co-
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workers, who reported a palladium(II)-catalyzed pyridine-
directed reaction that occurred with a promising 37% ee.[10a]
[*] Q. Li, Prof. Dr. Z.-X. Yu
Beijing National Laboratory of Molecular Sciences (BNLMS)
Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry and Molecular Engineering
College of Chemistry, Peking University, Beijing, 100871 (China)
Fax: (+86)10-6275-1708
E-mail: yuzx@pku.edu.cn
[**] We thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(20825205–National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Schol-
ars, 20772007, 20672005) and the Ministry of Science and
Technology (2011CB808603 and 2010CB833203–National Basic
Research Programs of China-973 Programs) for financial support.
We also thank Prof. Norio Miyaura (Hokkaido University), Prof. Qi-
Lin Zhou (Nankai University), and Prof. Shu-Li You (SIOC) for
sending us the chiral ligands.
Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW
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ꢀ 2011 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2011, 50, 2144 –2147