Angewandte
Research Articles
Chemie
deactivating substituent thus enabling selective targeting of
Surprisingly when the bulkier A4 was tested the unexpected
the distal wÀ1 site (26–28).
and fully site-selective chlorination at C-7 took place (41),
which was confirmed by X-Ray analysis.[46] To the best of our
knowledge no chemical transformation has allowed the direct
targeting of this position and only de novo multistep syn-
thesis[47] or microbial hydroxylation using Cunninghamella
eschinulata[48] have been reported for the preparation of C-7-
functionalised (+)-sclareolide. In general, C-2 functionaliza-
tion is favored due to the planarization of an incipient radical
in the HAT transition state that releases the unfavorable 1,3-
diaxial interactions with the angular Me-groups.[6b] We
propose that increasing the steric hinderance of the HAT
reagent diverts the site-selectivity of the process to the less
activated but more accessible C-7 methylene unit.[49] While
unexpected this result represent an outstanding example of
reagent-dictated site-selectivity and suggests that by screen-
ing structurally different aminium radicals, the complex
topology of natural products might open up for novel and
selective functionalization paradigms.
A Ph substituent is a strong activating group also in the
presence of other deactivating functionalities like a free
carboxylic acid as demonstrated by the successful formation
of 29 and 30.
It is important to note that in none of these examples we
2
À
observed radical sp C H amination as previously reported by
us and others.[12a,41] The reaction of aminium radicals with
aromatics displays strong solvent dependence and can be
achieved using polar media like CH3CN and/or HFIP.[12a,42] In
this case, the use of CH2Cl2 as the solvent and, crucially, the
absence of a photocatalyst, enabled to divert the aminium
radical reactivity from p-addition to HAT. We believe this
control over chemoselectivity to be noteworthy, since pio-
neering laser-flash photolysis studies by Chow,[43] demon-
strated how HAT reactivity is several orders of magnitudes
slower than addition to p-systems.
We were also interested in evaluating longer and shorter
alkyl chain derivatives. In the case of octanoic acid, selective
wÀ1 chlorination was achieved (31), however, the remote
position of the carboxylic acid leads to attenuation of the Conclusion
polar discrimination between the remote methylene units.
3
À
Nevertheless, 31 was obtained in overall 66% wÀ1 selectivity.
Shorter chain derivatives might suffer from the opposite
effect as the deactivating functional group is now closer to the
terminal methylene group. Despite this potential negative
kinetic polar effect, chlorination of four derivatives bearing
a butyl chain (32–35) was achieved in ꢁ 75% wÀ1 selectivity
and moderate to good chemical yield.
We then decided to evaluate the methodology in the late
stage modification of more complex and high-value materials.
g-Undecalactone is an aroma compound with an intense
peach flavour and its seven-C chain was chlorinated (36) in
overall 68% wÀ1 selectivity and good yield.
Achieving selectivity in radical sp C H chlorination is
still a synthetic challenge especially when broad functional
group compatibility is required. In this article we have
reported the development of a photochemical protocol for
the efficient and site-selective assembly of chlorinated build-
ing blocks. This strategy harnesses the conversion of secon-
dary amines into aminium radicals that are powerful inter-
mediates in HAT processes. The high-electrophilicity of these
species, combined with the ease of modulating the steric
hinderance around their N-centre has allowed to synergisti-
cally maximise polar and steric factors in the HAT-chlorina-
tion manifold.
NCS 60591 is a surface-active agent so the introduction of
a Cl-atom might infer interesting physicochemical proper-
ties.[44] Pleasingly, when exposed to our reaction conditions,
selective chlorination was achieved in 86% selectivity (37).
We believe this high wÀ1 selectivity is the result of two
synergistic effects, an inductive contribution from the free C-
4-OH group and a steric one from the branching at C-7, that
progressively deactivate most of the methylene units towards
HAT. A manifestation of steric deactivation of CH2 groups
was observed in the chlorination of 5a-cholestane, a bench-
Overall, this reactivity has enabled the direct introduction
3
À
of chlorine atoms in place of sp C H bonds with often the
highest known site-selectivity. The process tolerates a broad
range of functionalities that are frequently elusive in other
radical approaches thus providing access to high-value build-
ing blocks for further chemical diversification. The possibility
À
to override the innate selectivity for C H functionalization by
changing the steric environment around the aminium radical
might enable the exploration of currently elusive chemical
space.
À
mark substrate for C H functionalization methodologies,
containing 48 different sp3 C H bonds and no heteroato-
À
m.[11a,45] Our chlorination process enabled selective targeting
of C-2 and C-3 methylene units over the other 11 possible CH2
groups with an overall 58% yield (38) which is similar to what
reported by MnIII-porphyrin systems.[45a]
Acknowledgements
We thank Dr Ralph Adams, Prof David A. Leigh and Dean
Thomas for help with the quantitative 13C NMR analysis. D.L.
thanks EPSRC for a Fellowship (EP/P004997/1), and the
European Research Council for a research grant (758427).
The AtomAccess code was developed by G.K.G. and N.F.C.
for research activities on ERC CoG-816268 (PI: Dr David P.
Mills, University of Manchester).
The cytotoxic sesquiterpene (+)-sclareolide (39) is an-
À
other benchmark substrate commonly evaluated in C H
functionalization methodologies.[11a,45b] In general, this sub-
strate can be modified at C-11 using enolate chemistry or at
C-2 by HAT-based methodologies.[36a] Under our optimized
condition using A3, we obtained site-selective chlorination at
C-2 to give 2-chlorosclareolide (40) with good diastereose-
lectivity (dr 6.9:1) and good chemical yield on gram-scale.
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2021, 60, 7132 –7139
ꢀ 2021 The Authors. Angewandte Chemie International Edition published by Wiley-VCH GmbH
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