A simple and efficient synthetic route to substituted N-sulfinyl and N-sulfonyl azetidines is described involving imino-aldol reaction of ester enolates with racemic and non-racemic aldimines for obtaining β-amino esters as a key step. These β-amino esters on subsequent reduction followed by TsCl/KOH mediated cyclization produced the corresponding racemic and non-racemic azetidines with high yi...

α-Alkyl β-amino esters are available in high diastereoselectivity through a silicon-free Claisen enolate [3,3]-sigmatropic rearrangement of enamide esters. Optimisation studies have probed the crucial role of the initial enolisation and the nature of the enamide N-centre. The demonstration of chirality transfer and the formation of β-proline systems, is also presented.

Highly enantioselective synthesis of α,β-epoxy esters was achieved via one-pot organocatalytic epoxidation and consequent oxidative esterification. Excellent enantioselectivities (up to 99% ee) and good yields were obtained for a variety of α,β-epoxy esters. The method was readily scaled. Furthermore the product was applied towards the synthesis of (-)-clausenamide with excellent enantioselecti...

A family of chiral triazolium salts has been developed for inducing the asymmetric intramolecular Stetter reaction. The use of an aminoindanol-derived catalyst affords optimal results, with the product keto esters formed in 82-97% ee and very good chemical yield. Aromatic and aliphatic aldehydes are equally competent substrates for this reaction. The reaction conditions are reasonably mild and ...

Organoammonium salts composed of a Brønsted acid and an anilinothiourea promoted the Michael addition of ß-keto esters and α,ß-unsaturated aldehydes in the presence of primary amines to give functionalized 1,4-dihydropyridines enantioselectively. With the use of the different Brønsted acids such as DFA and HBF(4) with the same bifunctional thiourea, both enantiomers of 4-substituted 1,4-dihydro...

We report the synthesis and characterization of a variety of trans-3,4-substituted cyclopentanones and the corresponding tosylhydrazone derivatives starting with diethyl fumarate. Protection of the keto group followed by selective monohydrolysis of esters was achieved, resulting in cyclopentanones with different substituents at positions 3 and 4. The tosylhydrazone derivative of each cyclopenta...

an improved, simple, and facile synthesis of 3,4-dihydropyrimidin-2(1h)-ones by employing three-component, one-pot condensation reaction of β-keto ester, aromatic aldehydes, and urea or n-methylurea using lacl3/clch2cooh as an inexpensive and green chemistry catalyst system under solvent-free conditions described. compared with the classicalbiginelli reaction conditions, this method has the adv...

We demonstrate that allenes, chiral 1,2-dienes, appended with basic functionality can serve as ligands for transition metals. We describe an allene-containing bisphosphine that, when coordinated to Rh(I), promotes the asymmetric addition of arylboronic acids to α-keto esters with high enantioselectivity. Solution and solid-state structural analysis reveals that one olefin of the allene can coor...

A catalysis-based approach to the core region 24 of the antitumor agents salicylihalamides A and B is reported. Key steps are two asymmetric hydrogenations of beta-keto esters 13 and 16 catalyzed by [(R)-BINAP.RuCl(2)](2).NEt(3) and an RCM-based macrocyclization effected by the NHC-containing ruthenium carbene 21. The stereochemical outcome of the latter reaction is controlled by remote substit...