Anion-Relay Double Aza-Michael-Michael Cascades to Enone-Tethered Cyclohexadienones: Access to an Intricate Bridged Ring System

An anion-relay double aza-Michael-Michael addition strategy has been reported for the synthesis of intricate scaffolds from enone-tethered cyclohexadienones and primary amines. This method discloses the base-catalyzed synthesis of highly valued bridged aza-tricyclic frameworks with a high level of product selectivity and stereoselectivity. Gram scale synthesis and synthetic transformation were shown to afford structurally diverse bridged aza-polycyclic amines. Control experiments and the kinetic profile were studied to determine a plausible reaction mechanism.

A Highly Enantioselective Homoenolate Michael Addition/Esterification Sequence of Cyclohexadienone-Tethered Enals via NHC Catalysis

Reported here is a highly enantioselective homoenolate Michael addition/esterification sequence of cyclohexadienone-tethered enals via N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) catalysis, affording the enantiopure cis-hydrobenzofurans, cis-hydroindoles, and cis-hydroindenes. The NHC catalyst bearing a nitro group greatly enhances the stereocontrol, and a bulky N-aryl substituent of the triazolium salt in the catalyst is helpful for inhibiting the further aldol condensation after homoenolate Michael addition. The utility of this protocol is highlighted by a gram-scale experiment and versatile downstream transformations.

Enantioselective Cu(I)-catalyzed borylative cyclization of enone-tethered cyclohexadienones and mechanistic insights

The catalytic asymmetric borylation of conjugated carbonyls followed by stereoselective intramolecular cascade cyclizations with in situ generated chiral enolates are extremely rare. Herein, we report the enantioselective Cu(I)-catalyzed β-borylation/Michael addition on prochiral enone-tethered 2,5-cyclohexadienones. This asymmetric desymmetrization strategy has a broad range of substrate scope to generate densely functionalized bicyclic enones bearing four contiguous stereocenters with excellent yield, enantioselectivity, and diastereoselectivity. One-pot borylation/cyclization/oxidation via the sequential addition of sodium perborate reagent affords the corresponding alcohols without affecting yield and enantioselectivity. The synthetic potential of this reaction is explored through gram-scale reactions and further chemoselective transformations on products. DFT calculations explain the requirement of the base in an equimolar ratio in the reaction, as it leads to the formation of a lithium-enolate complex to undergo C-C bond formation via a chair-like transition state, with a barrier that is 22.5 kcal/mol more favourable than that of the copper-enolate complex.

Rapidly building molecular structures with both elements of complexity and flexibility is a key goal of organic synthesis. Here the authors show a tandem copper-catalyzed β-borylation/Michael addition on prochiral enone-tethered 2,5-cyclohexadienones, to generate bicyclic borylated products in high yield and enantioselectivity.

Transition-Metal Catalyzed Stereoselective Desymmetrization of Prochiral Cyclohexadienones

The development of transition-metal catalyzed enantioselective and diastereoselective transformations has contributed many advances in the field of synthetic organic chemistry. Particularly, stereoselective desymmetrization of prochiral cyclohexadienones represents a powerful strategy for accessing highly functionalized and stereochemically enriched scaffolds, which are often found in biologically active compounds and natural products. In recent years, several research groups including our group have made a significant progress on transition-metal catalyzed stereoselective desymmetrizations of 2,5-cyclohexadienones. In this account, we will provide an overview of the recent developments in this area employing Pd, Cu, Rh, Au, Ag, Ni, Co, and Mn-catalysts.

Construction of 1-Tetralols Bearing Two Contiguous Quaternary Chiral Centers through a Rhodium-Catalyzed Enantioselective Desymmetrization Cascade Reaction

A novel and efficient access to polyfunctionnalized chiral 1-tetralols, bearing two contiguous quaternary carbon stereocenters, has been developed from various and easily accessible alkynyl-1,3-diketones, through a cascade process including a regioselective alkyne insertion, a 1,4-Rh shift, and a nucleophilic addition step via the desymmetrization of the 1,3-diketone moiety thanks to an appropriate rhodium-chiral diene complex in the presence of arylboronic acids.

Stereocontrolled transformations of cyclohexadienone derivatives to access stereochemically rich and natural product-inspired architectures

The last two decades or so have witnessed an upsurge in defining the art of designing complex natural products and nature-inspired molecules. Throughout these decades, fundamental insights into stereocontrolled, step-economic and atom-economical synthesis principles were achieved by the numerous synthetic accomplishments particularly in diversity-oriented synthesis (DOS). This has empowered the visualization of the third dimension in synthetic design and thus has resulted in a dramatic increase with today's diversity-oriented synthesis (DOS) at the forefront enabling access to diverse scaffolds with a high degree of stereochemical and skeletal complexity. To this end, a starting material-based approach is one of the powerful tools utilized in DOS that allows rapid access to molecular architectures with a high sp3 content. Skeletal and stereochemical diversity is often paramount for the selective modulation of the biological function of a complementary protein in the biological space. In this context, stereocontrolled transformation of cyclohexadienone scaffolds has positioned itself as a powerful platform for the rapid generation of stereochemically enriched and natural product-inspired compound collections. In this review, we cover multidirectional synthetic strategies that utilized cyclohexadienone derivatives as pluripotent building blocks en route for the construction of novel chemical space.

Copper-catalyzed asymmetric tandem borylative addition and aldol cyclization

A highly enantioselective asymmetric copper-catalyzed tandem conjugate addition/aldol cyclization of electron-deficient olefins with B₂pin₂ was developed, which provided a rapid access to indanes bearing three consecutive chiral stereogenic centers.