title: Peri- and enantioselectivity of thermal, scandium-, and [pybox/scandium]-catalyzed Diels-Alder and hetero-Diels-Alder reactions of methyl (E)-2-oxo-4-aryl-butenoates with cyclopentadiene.
abstract: The cycloaddition between methyl (E)-2-oxo-4-aryl-3-butenoates (2 a-d) and cyclopentadiene, in addition to the expected normal Diels-Alder (DA) adducts endo-3 a-d and exo-4 a-d, gives the less expected endo-5 a-d products of the [4+2] hetero-Diels-Alder (HDA) reaction in which the alpha-ketoester behaves as a heterodiene. If a comparison is made between the thermal and the scandium(III) triflate-catalyzed conditions, the periselectivity changes and whereas under thermal conditions the main products are those from the DA reaction (3 a-d), in the presence of Sc(OTf)3 (OTf=triflate), the HDA products 5 a-d become largely predominant. The reactions are enantioselectively catalyzed by the scandium(III) triflate complex of (4'S,5'S)-2,6-bis[4'-(triisopropylsilyl)oxymethyl-5'-phenyl-1',3'-oxazolin-2'-yl]pyridine (1) and both the DA and the HDA products are obtained with excellent enantiomeric excess, up to >99% ee. The X-ray crystallographic structure determination of 5 c assigns it the 4R,4aS,7aR absolute configuration. The thermal retro-Claisen rearrangement of 3 c into (4R,4aS,7aR)-5 c allows the correlation of their absolute configuration, and 3 c has therefore the 2R,3R configuration. By analogy the same absolute configuration can be assigned to 3 a,b,d and 5 a,b,d, and the stereospecific thermal Claisen rearrangement of the optically active 5 a,b,d into 3 a,b,d completes the correlation between their absolute configuration. The [3,3]-sigmatropic rearrangements can be easily carried out under catalytic conditions with scandium(III) triflate, which promotes the equilibration between 3 a-d and 5 a-d, with a different degree of enantioselectivity characterizing the process starting from 3 a-d or 5 a-d. The unambiguous attributions of the configuration to the products allows us to propose a rationale of the stereochemical outcome of the catalyzed cycloaddition and to investigate the reaction mechanism of the competing DA and HDA reactions and shifts in products distribution by acid catalysis.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Chimica Organica dell'Università di Pavia, Viale Taramelli 10, 27100 Pavia, Italy. desimoni@unipv.it
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Desimoni
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Faita
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Toscanini
authors.forename: Massimo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Boiocchi