Organic Letters
Letter
3a in 70% yield with 79% ee and >20:1 dr (Table 1, entries 1−5).
Interestingly, upon addition of 10 equiv of water, the yield and
Scheme 1. State-of-the-Art of Formal [4 + 2]-Cycloaddition
for α,β-Unsaturated Ketones and Methylene Oxindoles
a
Table 1. Optimization of Reaction Conditions
b
c
entry
solvent
additive
yield (%)
ee (%)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
DCM
CHCl3
CH3CN
DMF
MeOH
DCM
DCM
DCM
MeOH
DMF
70
57
45
58
22
91
50
15
82
92
96
88
94
76
79
77
54
76
6
93
32
0
69
−59
−55
−40
−98
50
H2O (10eq)
4 Å MS (40 mg)
CaCl2 (2eq)
CaCl2 (2eq)
CaCl2(2eq)
CaCl2(1eq)
CaCl2(5eq)
CaCl2 (2eq), K2CO3
CaCl2 (2eq), H2O
9
10
11
12
13
14
DMF
DMF
DMF
DMF
d
e
a
Unless otherwise specified, reactions were performed on a 0.2 mmol
scale of isatylidene (2a) using 4 equiv of 2-cyclopentenone (1), 20
mol % catalyst, and x equiv of additive in 1 mL of solvent at rt for 48
b
h. Solvents were used without further treatment. Isolated yield, dr >
c
d
e
20:1. Determined by HPLC. With 20 mol % K2CO3. With 0.1 mL
of H2O.
stereoselectivity of the reaction were significantly improved to
91% yield and 93% ee as well as >20:1 dr, respectively (Table 1,
entry 6). As expected, when 4 Å molecular sieves were added at
the beginning of the reaction to remove water, both yield and
enantioselectivity decreased (entry 7). To our surprise, in the
presence of the frequently used drying agent CaCl2, the
enantioselectivity dropped to nearly 0% ee (entry 8). This
suggested that CaCl2 might affect the stereocontrol to favor the
formation of the other enantiomer in this asymmetric trans-
formation. These preliminary results encouraged us to further
evaluate the effect of CaCl2 in other solvents (entries 9 and 10).
To our delight, the enantioselectivity of the transformation was
completely reversed in the presence of 2 equiv of CaCl2 in DMF
at room temperature (entry 10). Increasing or decreasing the
loading of CaCl2 will not improve the reaction yield or
enantioselectivity (entries 11 and 12). However, the addition
of inorganic base K2CO3 could further promote this asymmetric
transformation and afford product 3a in 94% yield with −98% ee
and >20:1 dr (entry 13). Other bases such as Na2CO3 and Et3N
were also evaluated but gave inferior results (see the SI for
details). Moreover, the effect of CaCl2 could be eliminated if 0.1
mL of H2O was added, possibly due to the coordination of water
molecules with calcium ion (entry 14). To be noted, the
diastereoselectivity is as high as >20:1 and not influenced by the
variation of reaction conditions.
benzoic acid to achieve asymmetric [4 + 2] annulations of 2-
cyclopentenone with isatylidenes (Scheme 1b).13 It is worth
noting that the resulting spirooxindole−norcamphor scaffold
might hold broad potentials for biological studies by merging
two bioactive moieties. As part of our continuous efforts on
seeking efficient asymmetric organocatalyzed functionalization
of isatylidenes,14 we herein disclose our efforts on the
exploration of [4 + 2]-annulation of isatyledene with 2-
cyclopentenone catalyzed by prolinosulfonamide catalyst
(Scheme 1c). Interestingly, the enantioselectivity of this
protocol can be effectively switched by simply manipulating
the additives.
We started our investigations by monitoring the reaction of 2-
cyclopentenone and isatyledene in the presence of proline-
derived organocatalyst at room temperature. It was rationalized
that the prolinosulfonamide bearing pyrrole and acidic
sulfonamide group was expected to activate both electrophilic
and nucleophilic centers of both reaction partners.15 Con-
sequently, various prolinosulfonamide bifunctional organo-
catalysts were screened, and 4-tert-butyldimethylsiloxy-L-
prolinosulfonamide (cat*) was found to give the best
The further evaluation of different solvents revealed that1,2-
dichloroethane was a suitable solvent, giving the desired product
Encouraged by these promising results, we further examined
the substrate scope of the established enantiodivergent formal [4
+ 2]-cyclization transformation (Scheme 2). Under the catalysis
of prolinosulfonamide (cat*) in DCM with the addition of 10
equiv of H2O (conditions A), a series of spirooxindole−
964
Org. Lett. 2021, 23, 963−968