Angewandte
Communications
Chemie
À
C H Activation
Hot Paper
3
À
Catalytic C(sp ) H Arylation of Free Primary Amines with an exo
Directing Group Generated In Situ
Yan Xu+, Michael C. Young+, Chengpeng Wang, David M. Magness, and Guangbin Dong*
Dedicated to Professor Barry M. Trost on the occasion of his 75th birthday
Abstract: Herein, we report the palladium-catalyzed direct
À
arylation of unactivated aliphatic C H bonds in free primary
amines. This method takes advantage of an exo-imine-type
directing group (DG) that can be generated and removed
in situ. A range of unprotected aliphatic amines are suitable
substrates, undergoing site-selective arylation at the g-position.
Methyl as well as cyclic and acyclic methylene groups can be
activated. Furthermore, when aniline-derived substrates were
À
used, preliminary success with d-C H arylation was achieved.
The feasibility of using the DG component in a catalytic
fashion was also demonstrated.
A
mines are commonly found in approved drugs, agrochem-
icals, and other biologically important molecules.[1,2] While
still an on-going challenge, the site-selective functionalization
of unactivated C H bonds[3] in amines would offer a straight-
À
forward approach to access various derivatives and analogues,
which should consequently impact the development of
pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. During the past decade,
significant progress has been made in terms of the transition-
metal-catalyzed functionalization of unactivated aliphatic
3
À
Scheme 1. DG-based strategies for amine C(sp ) H functionalization.
PG=protecting group.
À
C H bonds in amines by using directing group (DG)
strategies,[4] in which the amine moiety is often masked as
an amide,[5,6] sulfonamide,[7] hydrazone,[8] or urea,[9] or teth-
ered with another DG[10] (Scheme 1A). Albeit highly effec-
tive, these tactics typically require additional steps for the
installation and removal of the DG component. An ideal
approach would directly employ a free amine as the DG.
Recently, Gaunt and co-workers disclosed the first examples
free primary amines. Our laboratory has recently employed
an exo directing mode to realize the catalytic functionaliza-
[13]
À
tion of unactivated aliphatic C H bonds with oximes and
hydrazones[8] (Scheme 1C, Y= O and N-PG). An intriguing
question is whether a regular imine (Y= CRR’) can be
3
À
À
of free-amine-directed catalytic activation of primary C H
employed as an effective exo-DG for C(sp ) H activation.
bonds (Scheme 1B); in their study, the use of bulky,
disubstituted amine substrates appeared to be important.[11]
It is likely that the main difficulties of directly using a free
amine as the DG result from the lack of backbonding when
coordinated to transition metals as well as the susceptibility of
amines to both oxidants and electrophiles.[12]
Inspired by the aforementioned challenge, we sought to
use an in situ generated, exo-type DG (with the p-bond of the
DG outside the metallacycle) for the direct C H activation of
Compared to oximes and hydrazones, N-alkyl imines are
generally more labile towards hydrolysis; however, the
successful realization of such a transformation would enable
À
the use of free amines as substrates for remote C H
functionalization through in situ formation and removal of
the imine DG (Scheme 1D).[14–16] Seminal examples of using
aniline-derived imines as exo-DGs were reported by Sames
and co-workers in the total synthesis of rhazinilam[17] and the
core of teleocidin B4;[18] these syntheses involved the use of
stoichiometric amounts of platinum and palladium for
dehydrogenation, vinylation, and carbonylation reactions.
Herein, we describe the development of a Pd-catalyzed
À
[*] Y. Xu,[+] Dr. M. C. Young,[+] C. Wang, D. M. Magness, Prof. G. Dong
Department of Chemistry
À
direct arylation of the unactivated g- and d-C H bonds in free
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712 (USA)
E-mail: gbdong@cm.utexas.edu
primary alkyl amines and anilines by using an 8-formylquino-
line-derived exo-DG, which enables the functionalization of
methyl as well as acyclic and cyclic methylene groups.
Simple 2-butylamine (1a) was employed as the initial
model substrate. To generate the imine DG in situ, quinoline-
[+] These authors contributed equally.
Supporting information for this article can be found under:
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2016, 55, 1 – 5
ꢀ 2016 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
1
These are not the final page numbers!