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Letter
Synlett
was observed (90:10 dr). Even if we were not able to de-
duce the absolute configuration of the new stereogenic car-
bon, the presence of a stereodefined tertiary center at this
position lead to a diastereoselective conjugate addition to
proximal exo-methylanated ketones. The development of a
new catalyst could allow us to study match and mismatch
cases associated to the asymmetric conjugate addition to
enantiopure unsaturated ketones. Furthermore, the synthe-
sis of 7 was a model considered en route to more complex
systems. Indeed, we could trap the magnesium enolate
with allyl chloroformate and thus prepare the correspond-
ing allyl enol carbonate (not shown). By looking at the pal-
ladium-catalyzed decarboxylative allyl alkylation18 for this
system and the different catalyst–substrate combination,
we would have access to three contiguous stereogenic cen-
ters.
In conclusion, we have developed a general method for
the enantioselective conjugate addition of trialkylalumini-
um reagents onto α-alkylidene cycloalkanones using CuTc
as catalyst and phosphoramidite ligand L-2. Trimethylalu-
minium provides better enantioselectivity than triethylalu-
minium (up to 95% ee). α-Alkylidene cyclohexanones and
cyclopentanones are suitable substrates and these can be
substituted with the olefin termini being aromatic, het-
eroaromatic, or alkyl groups. While the nucleophilic addi-
tion is stereocontrolled, trapping of the transient alumini-
um enolate showed a low diastereoselectivity using either
H+ or alkylating reagent. Further development for such
transformation would therefore overcome the observed
limitation for the diastereoselectivity as well as direct use
in the synthesis of biorelevant targets.
(d) Naasz, R.; Arnold, L. A.; Minnaard, A. J.; Feringa, B. L. Chem.
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(3) Copper-Catalyzed Asymmetric Synthesis; Alexakis, A.; Krause, N.;
Woodward, S., Eds.; Wiley-VCH: Weinheim, 2014.
(4) For α-alkylidene cyclopentanones, see: (a) Schmuff, N. R.; Trost,
B. M. J. Org. Chem. 1983, 48, 1404. (b) Reusch, W.; Wang, W. Y.
Tetrahedron 1988, 44, 1014. (c) La Clair, J. J.; Lansbury, P. T.; Zhi,
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Chen, B.; Zhang, W.; Campbell, C. L. J. Org. Chem. 2002, 67, 4821.
(f) Stellfeld, T.; Bhatt, U.; Kalesse, M. Org. Lett. 2004, 6, 3889.
(g) Hua, Z.; Carcache, D. A.; Tian, Y.; Li, Y.-M.; Danishefsky, S. J.
J. Org. Chem. 2005, 70, 9849.
(5) For α-alkylidene cyclohexanones, see: (a) Paquette, L. A.; Wang,
X. J. Org. Chem. 1994, 59, 2052. (b) Fleming, I.; Ramarao, C.
Chem. Commun. 2000, 2185. (c) Fleming, I.; Maiti, P.; Ramarao,
C. Org. Biomol. Chem. 2003, 1, 3989. (d) Oballa, R. M.; Carson, R.;
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(6) Börner, C.; Dennis, M. R.; Sinn, E.; Woodward, S. Eur. J. Org.
Chem. 2001, 2435.
(7) Other conditions with CuI and Tol-BINAP were evaluated
without success. For a leading reference, see: Wang, S.-Y.; Ji,
S.-J.; Loh, T.-P. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2012, 134, 19604.
(8) Vuagnoux-d’Augustin, M.; Alexakis, A. Chem. Eur. J. 2007, 13,
9647.
Acknowledgment
The authors thank Stéphane Rosset for technical help and Noé Mage
for preparation of 1d and BnI.
(9) Recent report discussing similar behavior: Li, H.; Alexakis, A.
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2012, 51, 1055.
(10) Recent report on the use of phosphanamine as ligand for CuTc-
catalyzed asymmetric conjugate addition of alane: Müller, D.;
Alexakis, A. Chem. Eur. J. 2013, 19, 15226.
Supporting Information
Supporting information for this article is available online at
S
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ortiInfogrmoaitn
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(11) General Procedure
In a Schlenk tube, to a solution of α-alkylidene cyclohexanone
1d (51.5 mg, 0.27 mmol), CuTc (2.5 mg, 0.013 mmol), L-2 (7.0
mg, 0.013 mmol) in Et2O (3 mL) at –30 °C was added dropwise a
solution of Me3Al (2.0 M in heptane, 188 μL, 0.37 mmol), and
the reaction was stirred for 2 h. At this point, an aliquot was
taken and quenched with Ac2O to determine the enantioselec-
tivity. After addition of 2 mL of 1.2 M HCl in MeOH the reaction
was stirred at r.t., and a saturated solution of Rochelle’s (or Sei-
gnette) salt was added (5 mL). After extraction of the aqueous
phase with Et2O, the combined organic phases were washed
with brine, dried over MgSO4, filtered, and concentrated in
vacuo. GC analysis was used to determine the conversion and
purification on silica gel (cyclohexane–EtOAc, 99:1) afforded 3e
as colorless oil in 70% yield. Mixture of diastereomers = 3.1:1;
dias indicates signals due to both. 1H NMR (400 MHz, CDCl3): δ
References and Notes
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Chem. Rev. 2008, 108, 2796. (c) Alexakis, A.; Benhaim, C. Eur. J.
Org. Chem. 2002, 3221. For Rh, see: (d) Fagnou, K.; Lautens, M.
Chem. Rev. 2003, 103, 169. (e) Yamasaki, K.; Hayashi, T. Chem.
Rev. 2003, 103, 2829. (f) Koripelly, G.; Rosiak, A.; Rössle, M.;
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(2) (a) Petrier, C.; Barbosa, J. C. D.; Dupuy, D.; Luche, J. L. J. Org.
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(c) Hirao, T.; Takada, T.; Sakurai, H. Org. Lett. 2000, 2, 3659.
© Georg Thieme Verlag Stuttgart · New York — Synlett 2015, 26, 901–906