Angewandte
Chemie
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201311200
Synthetic Methods
Dual Platinum and Pyrrolidine Catalysis in the Direct Alkylation of
Allylic Alcohols: Selective Synthesis of Monoallylation Products**
Ryozo Shibuya, Lu Lin, Yasuhito Nakahara, Kazushi Mashima,* and Takashi Ohshima*
Abstract: A dual platinum- and pyrrolidine-catalyzed direct
allylic alkylation of allylic alcohols with various active
methylene compounds to produce products with high mono-
allylation selectivity was developed. The use of pyrrolidine and
acetic acid was essential, not only for preventing undesirable
side reactions, but also for obtaining high monoallylation
selectivity.
carbonates, via a p-allylmetal intermediate, the so-called
Tsuji–Trost reaction.[2] In these reactions, however, undesir-
able overreactions may occur to give the diallylated[3] com-
pound 5, and thus making it difficult to separate the desired
monoallylation products from the reaction mixture. Although
several highly mono-selective stoichiometric[4] and catalytic[5]
reactions with some specific substrates have been reported,
further development of mono-selective allylation with
a broader substrate generality is in high demand.
Direct catalytic substitution of underivatized allylic alco-
hols with carbon and heteroatom (N, O, and S) nucleophiles,
which generated the desired allylated products together with
water as the sole co-product, is a more straightforward and
desirable method in terms of atom-economy and environ-
mental concerns (Scheme 1, 1!4).[6] Despite the poor leaving
ability of the hydroxyl group, several palladium-[7,3c] and
platinum-catalyzed[8] direct substitutions of allylic alcohols
without the use of an activator were recently developed by
various research groups, providing a highly atom-economical
synthetic method for linear allylation products. In the case of
carbon nucleophiles, however, Ozawa and Yoshifuji devel-
oped the only successful monoselective allylation by using
unique p-allyl palladium complexes bearing bulky diphosphi-
nidenecyclobutene (DPCB) ligands,[7a] but the substrate scope
was limited.
T
he allylation of activated methylene compounds, such as
1,3-dicarbonyl compounds, is a very important carbon–carbon
bond forming reaction because of the usefulness of the
corresponding allylation products for the synthesis of natural
and unnatural bioactive compounds.[1] As outlined in
Scheme 1 (1!2!4), these transformations are generally
We have previously demonstrated that a Pt catalyst
system of [Pt(cod)Cl2] and a ligand with a large bite angle,
2,2’-bis(diphenylphosphino)diphenyl ether (DPEphos) or 4,5-
bis(diphenylphosphino)-9,9-dimethylxanthene (Xantphos),
under microwave irradiation conditions promotes the direct
catalytic amination of allylic alcohols with arylamines, alkyl-
amines, and ammonia with high selectivity of the monoally-
lation products, where a sterically congested p-allyl Pt
intermediate created by the large-bite-angle ligand allows
for a preferential selective reaction with the substrate over the
monoallylation compound.[8a–c] Herein, we report a dual
platinum- and pyrrolidine-catalyzed allylic alkylation of
both aryl- and alkyl-substituted allylic alcohols (18 examples)
with various active methylene compounds (15 examples) and
high monoallylation selectivity (92:8 to > 99:1). The addition
of a catalytic amount of pyrrolidine and acetic acid is essential
not only for preventing undesirable side reactions, but also for
obtaining high monoallylation selectivity. Microwave irradi-
ation efficiently accelerated the reaction without a loss of
selectivity, making it possible to lower the reaction temper-
ature to 608C and reduce the reaction time to 5 h. Based on
several mechanistic investigations, we propose that pyrroli-
dine reacts with b-keto carbonyl compounds to generate
enamines, which act as sterically more congested, but more
reactive, nucleophiles.
Scheme 1. Conventional two-step synthesis (1!2!4) and direct syn-
thesis (1!4).
achieved using allylic halides with more than equimolar
amounts of base. Another synthetic method is the transition-
metal-catalyzed substitution reaction of activated allylic
alcohol derivatives, such as allylic halides, carboxylates, and
[*] R. Shibuya, L. Lin, Prof. Dr. T. Ohshima
Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kyushu University,
CREST, JST, Maidashi 3-1-1, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka, 812-8582 (Japan)
E-mail: ohshima@phar.kyushu-u.ac.jp
Y. Nakahara, Prof. Dr. K. Mashima
Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering Science,
Osaka University, CREST, JST, Toyonaka, Osaka, 560-8531 (Japan)
E-mail: mashima@chem.es.osaka-u.ac.jp
[**] This work was financially supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific
Research (B) (No. 24390004), Scientific Research on Innovative
Areas (No. 24106733) and Platform for Drug Discovery, Informatics,
and Structural Life Science from MEXT, and CREST from JST. R.S.
and Y.N. are the grateful recipient of a scholarship from JSPS.
Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 4377 –4381
ꢀ 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
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