Leighton’s Chiral Allylation Reagents

The asymmetric allylation of carbonyl compounds remains one of the most important and fundamental addition reactions for the synthesis of optically active chiral building blocks homoallylic alcohols.

In 2002, Leighton and co-workers developed strained silacycle compounds as versatile reagents for the practical enantioselective allylation of aldehydes.¹

A newly developed chiral auxiliary based on the cyclohexane-1,2- diamine scaffold successfully allylated a broad range of aldehydes highly enantioselectively (Scheme 1).²

The development of practical enantioselective syntheses of chiral amines is of great importance to synthetic organic and medicinal chemists. In 2003, Leighton and co-workers successfully used a pseudoephedrine-derived, five-membered-ring strained silacycle reagent for the enantioselective allylation of acylhydrazones (Scheme 2).³

The reaction scope of these silacycles was extended to a practical method for the enantioselective synthesis of tertiary carbinamines based on the addition of this chiral allylsilane reagent to a structurally diverse array of ketone-derived benzoylhydrazones (Scheme 3).⁴ While many methods for the synthesis of quaternary α-amino acids have been published, far fewer reports have dealt with the synthesis of tertiary carbinamines.

The free amines are easily accessed in good yields by subjecting the different hydrazones to reduction with SmI₂ (409340).

References