Sai
Ruan
,
Xiaobin
Lin
,
Lihua
Xie
,
Lili
Lin
,
Xiaoming
Feng
and
Xiaohua
Liu
*
Key Laboratory of Green Chemistry & Technology, Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610064, People's Republic of China. E-mail: liuxh@scu.edu.cn
First published on 18th September 2017
A highly efficient bifunctional guanidine catalyst was developed for the asymmetric cascade reaction between 2-nitrovinylphenols and azlactones. A wide variety of 3-aminodihydrocoumarin derivatives could be obtained in high yields (up to 99% yield) with excellent enantioselectivities (up to 99% ee) and diastereoselectivities (>19
:
1 dr).
In our efforts to develop new chiral bifunctional guanidine catalysts,9,10 we succeeded in several asymmetric transformations of azlactones, including a cascade reaction with o-hydroxy aldimines to obtain 3,4-diamino chroman-2-ones.7f Thus we sought to exploit chiral guanidine in the cascade reaction for the generation of 4-nitromethyl 3-aminochromanones. Herein, we report the highly diastereo- and enantioselective conjugate addition/lactonization between various 2-nitrovinylphenols11 and azlactones.
:
1) (entries 3–7). The amino acid backbone had an obvious influence on the enantioselectivity of the reaction, and tetrahydroisoquinoline-based G-4 and G-5 gave higher results than guanidines G-1–G-3 derived from L-proline, L-pipecolic acid, and L-ramipril subsequently.12 Further adjustment of the sulfonamide substituent indicated that the installation of the 2,6-difluorobenzenesulfonamide group onto G-5 enhanced the enantioselection to 85% ee in comparison with the TsNH substituted G-4 (entry 7 vs. entry 6). When the solvent was changed from ethyl acetate to THF, the enantioselectivity of the reaction became 88% ee with the yield and dr maintained (entry 8). When the reaction was performed at −60 °C, the enantioselectivity greatly improved to 95% ee (entry 9). If the catalyst loading of G-5 was reduced to 5 mol%, the ee value of 3aa slightly declined but with maintained yield and diastereoselectivity (entry 10).
| Entrya | Cat | Yieldb (%) | drc | eed (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| a Unless otherwise noted, the reactions were carried out with guanidine (10 mol%), 1a (0.10 mmol) and 2a (1.2 equiv.) in AcOEt (1.0 mL) at −30 °C for 24 h. b Isolated yield. c Determined by NMR analysis. d Determined by UPC2 analysis. e THF (1.0 mL) instead of AcOEt. f At −60 °C for 72 h. g G-5 (5 mol%). | ||||
| 1 | BG-1 | 86 | 2.5 : 1 |
24/14 |
| 2 | BG-1·HBArF4 | 75 | 2 : 1 |
23/11 |
| 3 | G-1 | 98 | >19 : 1 |
47 |
| 4 | G-2 | 94 | >19 : 1 |
52 |
| 5e | G-3 | 97 | >19 : 1 |
41 |
| 6 | G-4 | 95 | >19 : 1 |
74 |
| 7 | G-5 | 99 | >19 : 1 |
85 |
| 8e | G-5 | 99 | >19 : 1 |
88 |
| 9f | G-5 | 99 | >19 : 1 |
95 |
| 10f,g | G-5 | 99 | >19 : 1 |
93 |
Having identified the optimized reaction conditions (Table 1, entry 9), we next investigated the scope of (E)-2-(2-nitrovinyl) phenols 1 which were employed to react with azlactone 2a. As shown in Table 2, a variety of substrates bearing electron-withdrawing and electron-donating substituted phenolic groups were experimented on. Both the position and electronic nature of the substituent affected the yield obviously. For halo-substituted nitroolefins 1b–1d, the yield decreased along with the increase in atomic volume but without affecting the enantioselectivity (entries 2–4). 5-Substituted nitroalkenes 1e–1g underwent the reaction in relatively lower yield compared with the others (entries 5–7). It was noteworthy that the hydroxyl group tolerated well in the reaction, and the transformation of the substrate 1g afforded the corresponding product 3ga in 80% yield and 96% ee (entry 7). 6-Substituted nitroolefins 1h–1n performed the reaction well to give the related dihydrocoumarins 3ha–3na in 80–99% yield and 91–95% ee (entries 8–14). It was obvious that C6-electron-withdrawing groups resulted in lower yield than the electron-donating ones. Particularly, substrate 1n bearing the sterically hindered tert-butyl group adjacent to the hydroxyl group participated in the cascade reaction with 99% yield and 95% ee (entry 14). In all cases, the diastereoselectivity of the reaction was as high as 19
:
1.
| Entrya | 1: R1 | Yieldb (%) | drc | eed (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| a Unless otherwise noted, the reactions were carried out with G-5 (10 mol%), 1 (0.10 mmol) and 2a (1.2 equiv.) in THF (1.0 mL) at −60 °C for 72 h. b Isolated yield. c Determined by NMR analysis. d Determined by UPC2 analysis. | ||||
| 1 | 1a: H | 99 (3aa) | >19 : 1 |
95 |
| 2 | 1b: 4-F | 99 (3ba) | >19 : 1 |
95 |
| 3 | 1c: 4-Cl | 90 (3ca) | >19 : 1 |
95 |
| 4 | 1d: 4-Br | 84 (3da) | >19 : 1 |
96 |
| 5 | 1e: 5-Me | 80 (3ea) | >19 : 1 |
92 |
| 6 | 1f: 5-Cl | 85 (3fa) | >19 : 1 |
92 |
| 7 | 1g: 5-OH, 6-Me | 80 (3ga) | >19 : 1 |
96 |
| 8 | 1h: 6-F | 83 (3ha) | >19 : 1 |
94 |
| 9 | 1i: 6-Cl | 82 (3ia) | >19 : 1 |
91 |
| 10 | 1j: 6-Br | 80 (3ja) | >19 : 1 |
91 |
| 11 | 1k: 6-Me | 92 (3ka) | >19 : 1 |
95 |
| 12 | 1l: 6-MeO | 99 (3la) | >19 : 1 |
92 |
| 13 | 1m: 6-EtO | 95 (3ma) | >19 : 1 |
93 |
| 14 | 1n: 6-t-Bu | 99 (3na) | >19 : 1 |
95 |
Encouraged by the above mentioned results, we continued to investigate the scope of azlactones 2 (Table 3). 2-Aromatic substituents of azlactones 2b–2g underwent the reaction resulting in good to excellent yields and satisfactory enantioselectivity (entries 1–6). The electron-deficient substituent at the para-position of the 2-aryl group weakened the reactivity in comparison with electron-donating ones, and cyano-substituted 2d gave the lowest yield of 63% with 93% ee but ethyl-substituted 2g afforded up to 99% yield with 98% ee (entry 6 vs. entry 3). Next, azlactones varied at the C4-position were subjected to the reaction (entries 8–11). We synthesized azlactones 2i–2l from alanine, leucine, 2-amino-4-phenylbutanoic acid, and tryptophan separately, and allowed them to react with 1a. These reactions proceeded smoothly to the desired products in very high yields and enantioselectivities. Particularly, the 3-indolylmethyl substituted one afforded the formation of functional dihydrocoumarin derivative 3al in almost optical purity and equivalent yield.
| Entry | 2: R2/R3 | Yieldb (%) | drc | eed (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| a Unless otherwise noted, the reactions were carried out with G-5 (10 mol%), 1a (0.10 mmol) and 2 (1.2 equiv.) in THF (1.0 mL) at −60 °C for 72 h. b Isolated yield. c Determined by NMR analysis. d Determined by UPC2 analysis. e The azlactones 2 (2.0 equiv.). | ||||
| 1 | 2b: 4-ClC6H4/Bn | 87 (3ab) | >19 : 1 |
95 |
| 2 | 2c: 4-BrC6H4/Bn | 87 (3ac) | >19 : 1 |
96 |
| 3 | 2d: 4-NCC6H4/Bn | 63 (3ad) | >19 : 1 |
93 |
| 4 | 2e: 4-MeC6H4/Bn | 99 (3ae) | >19 : 1 |
95 |
| 5 | 2f: 4-MeOC6H4/Bn | 99 (3af) | >19 : 1 |
95 |
| 6 | 2g: 4-EtC6H4/Bn | 99 (3ag) | >19 : 1 |
98 |
| 7 | 2h: Ph/4-ClC6H4CH2 | 99 (3ah) | >19 : 1 |
96 |
| 8e | 2i: Ph/Me | 94 (3ai) | >19 : 1 |
98 |
| 9e | 2j: Ph/i-Bu | 97 (3aj) | >19 : 1 |
97 |
| 10 | 2k: Ph/CH2CH2Ph | 97 (3ak) | >19 : 1 |
98 |
| 11 | 2l: Ph/3-Indolylmethyl | 99 (3al) | >19 : 1 |
99 |
Taking into account the practical application of the catalyst system, the gram-scale synthesis of 3aa was performed. Under the optimal reaction conditions, 3 mmol (0.50 g) 1a and 3.6 mmol (0.91 g) azlactone 2a reacted well to afford the desired adduct 3aa in 84% yield (1.06 g) with 92% ee and >19
:
1 dr (Scheme 2). The absolute configuration of the product 3aa was determined to be (3R, 4R) by X-ray crystallography analysis, and the others were confirmed in comparison with the Cotton effect in the CD spectra analysis (see the ESI† for details).13 The chiral G-5 acts as a bifunctional catalyst such that the guanidine unit benefits the activation of azlactones and the sulfonamide group activates the nitroolefins via H-bonding. The diastereo- and enantioselective oxazolone–nitroalkene conjugate addition intermediate11f undergoes an intramolecular transesterification to give the final 4-nitromethyl 3-aminochromanone.
Footnote |
| † Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. CCDC 1560312. For ESI and crystallographic data in CIF or other electronic format, see DOI: 10.1039/c7qo00768j |
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