Journal of the American Chemical Society
Article
aminoalcohol 3a was triflated in situ and further reacted with
an amine nucleophile to give the desired SKP2 inhibitor 6 in
only two total steps.25 In addition, the TRPA1 agonist
precursor 7 was synthesized in two steps using the presented
1,2-arylamination followed by oxidation of the alcohol to the
carboxylic acid.26 These routes not only are step-economical
but also provide new divergent synthetic pathways that are
amenable toward rapid structural diversification of the
carboamination products for drug discovery.
Interestingly, we observed that the carboaminated (3a) to
hydroarylated (13) product ratio increased when the N−O
reagent concentration was increased, while alkene concen-
tration does not affect the product ratio (Schemes 4D, S1, and
S2). These data show that the N−O reagent, and not the
alkene, is involved in the product-determining step, which
provides support for pathway 1, the TM−MI−OA sequence.
On the basis of these experiments and literature precedents,
a plausible catalytic cycle is proposed in Scheme 4E.11,28,29
Here we propose a Ni(I)/Ni(III) catalytic cycle based on the
observed erosion of stereospecificity (3at, 3au, 3ax, and 3ay),
which may arise from a competitive process involving
reversible alkyl−Ni(III) homolysis to generate an alkyl radical
and Ni(II), followed by recombination.30 The proposed
catalytic cycle initiates with formation of an organonickel
species via transmetalation of the carbon nucleophile. Next,
alcohol-directed syn-1,2-migratory insertion occurs to afford a
putative alcohol-coordinated alkyl nickelacycle. This inter-
mediate then oxidatively adds to the electrophilic aminating
reagent, setting up the final carbon−nitrogen reductive
elimination step that delivers the 1,2-carboaminated product.
We next performed the late-stage difunctionalization of
complex natural products that contain allylic/homoallylic
alcohol moieties (Scheme 3C). Gratifyingly, linalool, sclareol,
allylestrenol, and altrenogest were successfully carboaminated
in good to excellent yields (3bd−3bg) without having to install
an additional directing auxiliary or any protecting groups.
Mechanistic Studies and Proposed Catalytic Cycle.
The high pathway selectivity of this three-component coupling
process and the importance of the tailored N−O electrophile
prompted us to investigate the reaction mechanism. To this
end, we first examined the importance of the alcohol directing
group through a series of control experiments. Notably, 4-
phenyl-1-butene (8) and a representative alkenyl ether (9),
both of which lack an alcohol directing group, did not result in
any product formation (Scheme 4A). Moreover, Heck or
hydroarylated products were not observed in either case,
signaling a significant role of the alcohol directing group in the
migratory insertion step. We next tested cinnamyl alcohol (10)
as a starting material, and in this case, we did not observe any
hydroaminated or carboaminated product, with unreacted 10
detected as the major component of the crude reaction mixture
(Scheme 4B). This result rules out a stepwise mechanism
consisting of oxidative Heck arylation followed by hydro-
amination of the resulting styrenyl intermediate. Finally, a
radical clock experiment using 1,6-heptadien-4-ol (11) was
performed to probe the generation of a carbon-centered radical
intermediate (Scheme 4C). Interestingly, acyclic carboami-
nated product 12 was observed as the major product, and no
evidence of the cyclized product was observed. This result is
consistent with a nonradical pathway or, alternatively, a radical
pathway involving a radical capture rate faster than that of the
radical cyclization step (>105 M−1 s−1).27
With a general picture of the mechanism established, we
next considered all of the different possible orders in which the
three key elementary steps (TM, transmetalation; OA,
oxidative addition; MI, migratory insertion) could take place
prior to C−N reductive elimination (see Supporting
Information for details). The three most plausible pathways
are (1) TM−MI−OA, (2) OA−TM−MI, and (3) TM−OA−
MI. To evaluate the viability of these possible sequences, we
analyzed the ratio of carboaminated product (3a) to
hydroarylated side product (13), the latter of which was
obtained in 6% yield under the standard conditions, as a
function of reagent concentrations. In a sequence in which MI
precedes OA, both the desired product (3a) and hydroarylated
product (13) would be generated from a common alkylnickel-
(I) intermediate (14); in this case the product ratio should be
determined by the relative rates of bimolecular oxidative
addition versus protodemetalation (both of which are expected
to be irreversible)28 and should thus be dependent on the
concentration of the N−O reagent. In an alternative OA-first
mechanism, the thusly generated alkylnickel(III) intermediate
would already bear the amido ligand, and the product ratio
should be independent of the N−O reagent concentration.
CONCLUSIONS
■
In summary, we have demonstrated an alcohol-directed, nickel-
catalyzed three-component 1,2-carboamination of unactivated
alkenes. Sterically and electronically modulated O-(2,6-
dimethoxybenzoyl)hydroxylamine electrophiles are critical in
enabling productive three-component coupling and minimiz-
ing undesired pathways. This method tolerates various aryl/
alkenylboronate nucleophiles and amine electrophiles as
coupling partners, with the nucleophile scope complementing
previous amide-directed methodology from our group that
employs alkylzinc reagents.11 In addition, diverse alkene
substrates, including alkenyl alcohols of varying chain lengths,
secondary alcohols, tertiary alcohols, disubstituted alkenes,
natural products, and sulfonamide-protected alkenylamines,
react to furnish the corresponding 1,2-carboaminated products
with high regio- and diastereoselectivity. On the basis of the
all-cis-conformation of cyclopentene-derived product 3ba and
the results of various control experiments, hydroxyl groups
were shown to function as directing groups for the nickel
catalyst, thereby controlling chemo- and regioselectivity.
Finally, a gram-scale reaction and applications to construct
bioactive compounds exemplify the synthetic utility of this
alcohol-directed alkene 1,2-carboamination.
ASSOCIATED CONTENT
* Supporting Information
■
sı
The Supporting Information is available free of charge on the
ACS Publications Web site. The Supporting Information is
Experimental details, NMR, X-ray, and other data (PDF)
NMR data in MNova format (ZIP)
Accession Codes
CCDC 2061172 contains the supplementary crystallographic
data for this paper. These data can be obtained free of charge
bridge Crystallographic Data Centre, 12 Union Road,
Cambridge CB2 1EZ, UK; fax: +44 1223 336033.
13968
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2021, 143, 13962−13970