Organocatalytic kinetic resolution of 1,5-dicarbonyl compounds through a retro-Michael reaction

• James Guevara-Pulido,
• Fernando González-Pérez,
• José M. Andrés and
• Rafael Pedrosa

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 473–482, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.34

• , Universidad de Valladolid, Paseo Belén 7, 47011-Valladolid, Spain 10.3762/bjoc.21.34 Abstract The pharmaceutical chemical industry has long used kinetic resolution to obtain high-value compounds. Organocatalysis has recently been added to this strategy, allowing for the resolution of racemic mixtures with

• low catalyst loadings and mild reaction conditions. This research focuses on the kinetic resolution of 1,5-dicarbonyl compounds using a retro-Michael reaction, co-catalyzed at room temperature with 20 mol % of the Jørgensen–Hayashi catalyst and PNBA. The study highlights the importance of conducting

• the kinetic resolution at a concentration of approximately ten millimolar (mM) to prevent the Michael retro-Michael equilibrium from affecting the process. Keywords: 1,5-dicarbonyl; equilibrium; kinetic resolution; organocatalysis; retro-Michael; Introduction For many years, enantiomers have been

Recent advances in electrochemical copper catalysis for modern organic synthesis

• Yemin Kim and
• Won Jun Jang

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 155–178, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.9

• enantioselectivity. First, the reaction of ketimine ester 33 and 2,3-dimethylhydroquinone at 10 °C provided the chiral 1,4-addition product 35 via dynamic kinetic asymmetric transformation (DyKAT). Conversely, when the reaction was performed at −10 °C, the reaction pathway switched from DyKAT to kinetic resolution

Recent advances in organocatalytic atroposelective reactions

• Henrich Szabados and
• Radovan Šebesta

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 55–121, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.6

• enantioselectivities in similar desymmetrization reactions [39][40][41][42]. The dynamic kinetic resolution (DKR) of racemic 2-arylbenzaldehydes 62 with α-bromoenals 63 led to axially chiral products 64 [43]. Triazolium salt C20 as an NHC pre-catalyst was the most efficient for achieving high yields and enantiomeric

• enantioselectivities. Compound 66d was incorporated into a thiourea organocatalyst framework and successfully tested in kinetic resolution with 73% enantioselectivity. The chiral phosphoric acid (CPA) (R)-C22 was used to catalyze the formation of a C–N chiral axis in the axially chiral product 68 from biarylamines 67

• enantioselectivity during the nucleophilic addition, and the subsequent aromatization completes central-to-axial chirality conversion delivering products 68. Dynamic kinetic resolution of naphthylindoles 69 was performed by reaction with bulky electrophiles such as azodicarboxylates 70 or o-hydroxybenzyl alcohols 72

Enantioselective regiospecific addition of propargyltrichlorosilane to aldehydes catalyzed by biisoquinoline N,N’-dioxide

• Noble Brako,
• Sreerag Moorkkannur Narayanan,
• Amber Burns,
• Layla Auter,
• Valentino Cesiliano,
• Rajeev Prabhakar and
• Norito Takenaka

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 3069–3076, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.255

• propargyltrichlorosilane [35][36] (Scheme 2). Other notable asymmetric catalytic approaches to prepare α-allenic alcohols (R2 = H) include the Corey–Bakshi–Shibata reduction of allenyl ketones [37], enzymatic [38][39][40], non-enzymatic [41] kinetic resolution of racemic α-allenic alcohols, and asymmetric 1,4

4,6-Diaryl-5,5-difluoro-1,3-dioxanes as chiral dopants for liquid crystal compositions

• Maurice Médebielle,
• Peer Kirsch,
• Jérémy Merad,
• Carolina von Essen,
• Clemens Kühn and
• Andreas Ruhl

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2940–2945, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.246

• still remain elusive and are not well understood [29]. Recently we have become interested in the preparation of racemic [30] anti- and highly enantioenriched 2,2-difluoro-1,3-diols [30][31][32] through an acylative double catalytic kinetic resolution (DoCKR) process [33]. While the 1,3-diol motif is

Asymmetric organocatalytic synthesis of chiral homoallylic amines

• Nikolay S. Kondratyev and
• Andrei V. Malkov

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2349–2377, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.201

• for the resolution of chiral amines [28]. However, it was not until 2004 that they were recognised as efficient chiral Brønsted acid organocatalysts for asymmetric Mannich reactions [29]. Malkov and co-workers revealed [30] that (R)-TRIP can act as a very efficient catalyst for the kinetic resolution

• -substituted aldimines. This was later addressed by the same researchers [15], who developed an organocatalytic kinetic resolution of secondary boronates to furnish bench-stable homochiral (S)-35. The latter were then employed in the asymmetric allylation of in situ-formed primary aldimines 37, leading

• (R)-VANOL ligand 115 was attained by column chromatography in 92%. In 2015, further development of the 2-aza-Cope rearrangement strategy was reported by Johnson [43]. This work expanded the scope of the reaction to β-formyl amides 119 under the conditions of dynamic kinetic resolution (DKR) by

Catalysing (organo-)catalysis: Trends in the application of machine learning to enantioselective organocatalysis

• Stefan P. Schmid,
• Leon Schlosser,
• Frank Glorius and
• Kjell Jorner

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2280–2304, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.196

• enantioselectivities of a kinetic resolution of benzyl alcohols and an enantiodivergent fluorination of allylic alcohols, observing good correlations for both reactions. Since then, the proposed NCI descriptors have been successfully applied to multiple different reactions, such as an allenoate Claisen rearrangement

Chiral phosphoric acid-catalyzed transfer hydrogenation of 3,3-difluoro-3H-indoles

• Yumei Wang,
• Guangzhu Wang,
• Yanping Zhu and
• Kaiwu Dong

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 205–211, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.20

• great attention in organic synthesis. Various methods [9], including reductive hydrogenation [10][11], kinetic resolution [12][13][14], functionalization of indole [15], and de novo construction of chiral 2-substituted indolines, have been developed [16][17][18][19][20]. In recent years, the metal

A new oxidatively stable ligand for the chiral functionalization of amino acids in Ni(II)–Schiff base complexes

• Alena V. Dmitrieva,
• Oleg A. Levitskiy,
• Yuri K. Grishin and
• Tatiana V. Magdesieva

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 566–574, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.41

• chirality which exhibits no racemization under action of strong bases [29]. The chiral N–H-containing rimantadine-based ligand (L6) is highly lipophilic and it was successfully used for the kinetic resolution of unprotected racemic amino acids [30]. The examples mentioned above show that the metal–Schiff

Catalytic aza-Nazarov cyclization reactions to access α-methylene-γ-lactam heterocycles

• Bilge Banu Yagci,
• Selin Ezgi Donmez,
• Onur Şahin and
• Yunus Emre Türkmen

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 66–77, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.6

• acetal group could be used as substrates in an aza-Nazarov cyclization with the intermediacy of in situ-generated N-acyliminium ions (Scheme 1b) [21]. The first catalytic aza-Nazarov reaction was reported by Tius and co-workers in 2010, which involved the kinetic resolution of azirine derivatives via an

Redox-active molecules as organocatalysts for selective oxidative transformations – an unperceived organocatalysis field

• Elena R. Lopat’eva,
• Igor B. Krylov,
• Dmitry A. Lapshin and
• Alexander O. Terent’ev

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2022, 18, 1672–1695, doi:10.3762/bjoc.18.179

• kinetic resolution of racemic alcohols [99] and for the oxidation of benzylic cyclic ethers to lactones [100] was demonstrated. The CuI/9-azabicyclo[3.3.1]nonane N-oxyl (ABNO) catalytic system successfully promotes the oxidative coupling of alcohols with primary amines [101] (Scheme 13). The reaction

Mechanochemical synthesis of unsymmetrical salens for the preparation of Co–salen complexes and their evaluation as catalysts for the synthesis of α-aryloxy alcohols via asymmetric phenolic kinetic resolution of terminal epoxides

• Shengli Zuo,
• Shuxiang Zheng,
• Jianjun Liu and
• Ang Zuo

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2022, 18, 1416–1423, doi:10.3762/bjoc.18.147

• the unsymmetrical salens with zinc, copper, and cobalt was studied and the chiral Co–salen complex 2f was obtained in 98% yield. Hydrolytic kinetic resolution (HKR) of epichlorohydrin with water catalyzed by complex 2f (0.5 mol %) was explored and resulted in 98% ee, suggesting complex 2f could serve

• with regard to conformational differences, for instance, oligosalen [14], macrocyclic oligosalen [15], and polymeric salen [16]. Jacobsen and co-workers reported the first synthesis of α-aryloxy alcohols through the phenolic kinetic resolution (KR) of terminal epoxides using a Co–salen catalyst [17

• were explored as well. Furthermore, we present the hydrolytic kinetic resolution (HKR) of epichlorohydrin with water using Co–salen complexes 2, and α-aryloxy alcohols were synthesized by the 2f catalytic system through the asymmetric ring opening of epichlorohydrin and phenols. Results and Discussion

Enantioselective total synthesis of putative dihydrorosefuran, a monoterpene with an unique 2,5-dihydrofuran structure

• Irene Torres-García,
• Josefa L. López-Martínez,
• Rocío López-Domene,
• Manuel Muñoz-Dorado,
• Ignacio Rodríguez-García and
• Miriam Álvarez-Corral

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2022, 18, 1264–1269, doi:10.3762/bjoc.18.132

• stereoselective kinetic resolution of allenol 3 via lipase AK-catalyzed acetylation [15]. In this way, unaltered, (−)-hydroxyallene 3 could be separated from (+)-acetyl derivative 9 through standard column chromatography (Scheme 3). Enantiomeric excesses of (−)-3 and (+)-9 were determined by chiral HPLC analyses

The asymmetric Henry reaction as synthetic tool for the preparation of the drugs linezolid and rivaroxaban

• Martin Vrbický,
• Karel Macek,
• Jaroslav Pochobradský,
• Jan Svoboda,
• Miloš Sedlák and
• Pavel Drabina

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2022, 18, 438–445, doi:10.3762/bjoc.18.46

• material were practically the same as the one of the starting material in all cases. Further, the separation via kinetic resolution in the final reaction step was also examined. The course of the re-esterification was stopped at a conversion of ca 50% and the de values were determined. Unfortunately, no

New advances in asymmetric organocatalysis

• Radovan Šebesta

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2022, 18, 240–242, doi:10.3762/bjoc.18.28

• Waser employed an isothiourea catalyst for esterification-mediated kinetic resolution of paracyclophane derivatives with planar chirality [19]. Parida and Pan showed that a Michael reaction coupled with an acyl transfer reaction between α-nitroketones and 4-arylidenepyrrolidine-2,3-diones can produce a

Synthesis and late stage modifications of Cyl derivatives

• Phil Servatius and
• Uli Kazmaier

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2022, 18, 174–181, doi:10.3762/bjoc.18.19

• degree of variability for the generation of small libraries, in our case of Cyl-1 derivatives. Chiral allylic alcohols are easily accessible, either via kinetic resolution of racemic alcohols [46][47], asymmetric catalysis [48], or from chiral pool materials, such as threitol 1 [49]. Using the last

Recent advances in the asymmetric phosphoric acid-catalyzed synthesis of axially chiral compounds

• Alemayehu Gashaw Woldegiorgis and
• Xufeng Lin

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2021, 17, 2729–2764, doi:10.3762/bjoc.17.185

• axial chiral compounds has been paid much attention [6], and great progress has been made in recent years. For example, many remarkable activities have been undertaken to develop strategies such as dynamic kinetic resolution, atroposelective coupling, cycloaddition, and chirality conversion for the

• (kinetic resolution) in the presence of chiral phosphoric acid CPA 3. In this work, various EWG- and EDG-containing substrates were incorporated, and chiral biaryls 10 were obtained with good to excellent selectivities of 81–93% ee by desymmetrization and 63–96% ee by kinetic resolution. The subsequent

• asymmetric addition reaction of racemic naphthylindole 42 with azodicarboxylate 43 under chiral phosphoric acid catalysis. In the presence of CPA 2, 42 and 43 reacted and underwent dynamic kinetic resolution to afford naphthylindoles 44 with axial chirality in moderate to good yields (50–98%) and high

Synthetic strategies toward 1,3-oxathiolane nucleoside analogues

• Umesh P. Aher,
• Dhananjai Srivastava,
• Girij P. Singh and
• Jayashree B. S

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2021, 17, 2680–2715, doi:10.3762/bjoc.17.182

• nucleoside analogues. The enantiomerically pure 1,3-oxathiolane core has been an important building block in precursors that result in a defined stereochemistry of the resultant nucleoside product after N-glycosylation. Dynamic kinetic resolution (DKR) is a processes that interconverts a racemic mixture into

• -oxathiolane with Trichosporon laibachii lipase and a kinetic resolution. The synthesis of enantiopure ((R)-5-acetoxy-1,3-oxathiolan-2-yl)methyl benzoate (71) was carried out from the substrates 3a, 1,4-dithiane-2,5-diol (3q), and phenyl acetate via dynamic covalent kinetic resolution. This was a one-pot

• achieved. In 2014, Zhang et al. [64] reported an optimized asymmetric synthesis of 1,3-oxathiolan-5-ones 77 and 78 via dynamic covalent kinetic resolution using hemithioacetal chemistry coupled with a lipase-catalyzed cyclization (Scheme 25). Methyl thioglycolate (3j) was used in the reaction with aldehyde

α-Ketol and α-iminol rearrangements in synthetic organic and biosynthetic reactions

• Scott Benz and
• Andrew S. Murkin

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2021, 17, 2570–2584, doi:10.3762/bjoc.17.172

• transferred between the oxygen atoms after the alkyl migration, making it especially useful in synthetic strategies using these protected intermediates. Additionally, the reaction was found to be useful in the kinetic resolution of a racemic mixture of chiral substrates possessing both alkyl and aryl α

• . The catalyst is also capable of kinetic resolution of a mixture of enantiomeric substrates. Al* = 18. BF3-promoted diastereospecific rearrangement of α-ketol 21 to difluoroalkoxyborane 22. In the presence of a gold catalyst and water in 1,4-dioxane, 1-alkynylbutanol derivatives undergo tandem

Halides as versatile anions in asymmetric anion-binding organocatalysis

• Lukas Schifferer,
• Martin Stinglhamer,
• Kirandeep Kaur and
• Olga García Macheño

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2021, 17, 2270–2286, doi:10.3762/bjoc.17.145

• maintain due to the conformational lability of the seleniranium ion [52][53][54], this initial problem can be exploited through the addition of an anion-binding catalyst. In this way, the configurational scrambling is used for a dynamic kinetic resolution during the intramolecular nucleophilic opening of

Chiral isothiourea-catalyzed kinetic resolution of 4-hydroxy[2.2]paracyclophane

• David Weinzierl and
• Mario Waser

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2021, 17, 800–804, doi:10.3762/bjoc.17.68

• David Weinzierl Mario Waser Institute of Organic Chemistry, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Altenbergerstrasse 69, 4040 Linz, Austria 10.3762/bjoc.17.68 Abstract We herein report a method for the kinetic resolution of racemic 4-hydroxy[2.2]paracyclophane by means of a chiral isothiourea

• -catalyzed acylation with isobutyric anhydride. This protocol allows for a reasonable synthetically useful s-factor of 20 and provides a novel entry to obtain this interesting planar chiral motive in an enantioenriched manner. Keywords: acylation; kinetic resolution; nucleophilic catalysis; paracyclophanes

• transformation into diastereomers by esterification with chiral acid chlorides [19][20] as well as the kinetic resolution (KR) of racemic esters of 2 via an enzymatic hydrolysis [25][26][27] were very successfully used to access enantioenriched 2. Recently, Akiyama and co-workers reported the kinetic resolution

A review of asymmetric synthetic organic electrochemistry and electrocatalysis: concepts, applications, recent developments and future directions

• Munmun Ghosh,
• Valmik S. Shinde and
• Magnus Rueping

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2019, 15, 2710–2746, doi:10.3762/bjoc.15.264

• ) in the kinetic resolution of primary amines 60 via their electrocatalytic oxidation to the corresponding ketones 62, and remaining amines (R)-60 were obtained with very high enantioselectivity. The controlled potential electrolysis was carried out in a divided cell in the presence of a base and a

• catalytic amount of 61 (Scheme 24) [59]. A similar strategy using N-oxalyl radicals as chiral mediators has also been explored for the enantioselective electrocatalytic oxidation of secondary alcohols [60]. Tanaka and co-workers subsequently published another article on the kinetic resolution of sec

• electrochemical asymmetric oxidation of 1,2-diols 74 and amino alcohols 77 in presence of a Br- mediator using Cu(OTf)2 and (R,R)-Ph-BOX 76 as the catalytic system (Scheme 29). The method enabled an asymmetric synthesis of α-hydroxycycloalkanones 75 and α-amino esters 78 along with the kinetic resolution of

Synthesis of acremines A, B and F and studies on the bisacremines

• Nils Winter and
• Dirk Trauner

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2019, 15, 2271–2276, doi:10.3762/bjoc.15.219

• isolated from fungi of the genus Acremonium. Here, we present the asymmetric total synthesis of acremine F which hinges on a modestly enantioselective dihydroxylation and a subsequent kinetic resolution via a highly selective asymmetric reduction. Chemoselective oxidation of acremine F gave access to

• . The use of a chiral oxazaborolidine catalyst led to kinetic resolution and increased the optical purity of 17 to 95% ee. Deprotection of the diol moiety followed by Stille cross coupling with vinyl stannane 18 finally gave 5 in excellent yield (Scheme 2). Since acremine F (5) can be expected to be the

• modestly enantioselective oxidation and a highly enantioselective reduction with kinetic resolution to access the acremine framework. The route proved to be scalable and delivered 300 mg of the natural product. Acremine F could further be converted into acremines A (1) and B (2) by a selective oxidation

1,2,3-Triazolium macrocycles in supramolecular chemistry

• Mastaneh Safarnejad Shad,
• Pulikkal Veettil Santhini and
• Wim Dehaen

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2019, 15, 2142–2155, doi:10.3762/bjoc.15.211

• kinetic resolution of epoxides with CO2 remains a big challenge. Recently, Ema and co-workers described a chiral binaphthyl strapped Zn(II) porphyrin with triazolium halide units as a bifunctional catalyst for the kinetic resolution of epoxides with CO2 [63]. The condensation of click-reaction-derived

• compound 8. Chemical structures of compound 9. Chemical structures of compound 10, 11 and 12. Chemical structure of compound 13. Chemical structure of compound 15 including the sigma-connected TCNQ dimer. Chemical structure of compound 16 for the kinetic resolution of epoxides. Chemical structure of

N-(1-Phenylethyl)aziridine-2-carboxylate esters in the synthesis of biologically relevant compounds

• Iwona E. Głowacka,
• Aleksandra Trocha,
• Andrzej E. Wróblewski and
• Dorota G. Piotrowska

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2019, 15, 1722–1757, doi:10.3762/bjoc.15.168

• both pairs of ethyl esters [26]. When a mixture of tert-butyl esters (2R,1'S)-5d and (2S,1'S)-5d was subjected to kinetic resolution in the presence of potassium tert-butoxide in tetrahydrofuran (2R,1'S)-5d was produced with low 40% de [27]. The absolute configuration at C2 in esters 5 was established