N-Heterocyclic carbene/Brønsted acid cooperative catalysis as a powerful tool in organic synthesis

• Rob De Vreese and
• Matthias D’hooghe

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2012, 8, 398–402, doi:10.3762/bjoc.8.43

• functionalized pyrrolidin-2-ones as valuable scaffolds in heterocyclic chemistry. This Commentary will briefly highlight the concept of N-heterocyclic carbene/Brønsted acid cooperative catalysis as a new and powerful methodology in organic chemistry. Keywords: Brønsted acids; cooperative catalysis; γ-lactams; N

• the search for suitable combinations and, if one of both partners is chiral, the development of enantioselective catalytic processes. Selected examples of the successful deployment of cooperative catalysis in organic synthesis comprise the preparation of chiral γ-lactams from N-acyl hydrazones and α,β

• as electrophiles could not be excluded in advance [16]. Application of this methodology indeed enabled the facile and stereoselective synthesis of trans-γ-lactams 16 in a straightforward manner (Scheme 5), which would not have been possible without cooperative catalysis. In a first attempt, this

Amines as key building blocks in Pd-assisted multicomponent processes

• Didier Bouyssi,
• Nuno Monteiro and
• Geneviève Balme

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2011, 7, 1387–1406, doi:10.3762/bjoc.7.163

• cyclofunctionalization of the allyl moiety by carbopalladation/reductive elimination [22]. It is interesting to note that 3-sulfonylpyrolidin-2-ones (γ-lactams) 48 may also be accessed in high yield as single trans-diastereomers upon simple treatment of N-allyl- or N-methylpyrrolidines with 2-mercaptobenzoic acid in

• boiling MeCN. Acid-promoted formation of a ring-opened iminium salt intermediate 47, followed by hydrolysis and subsequent intramolecular attack of the released secondary amine onto the ester group, would account for the formation of the γ-lactams [23]. This unexpected transformation was observed during

Tandem catalysis of ring-closing metathesis/atom transfer radical reactions with homobimetallic ruthenium–arene complexes

• Yannick Borguet,
• Xavier Sauvage,
• Guillermo Zaragoza,
• Albert Demonceau and
• Lionel Delaude

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2010, 6, 1167–1173, doi:10.3762/bjoc.6.133

• generate active species in situ. The two catalytic processes were first carried out independently in a case study before the whole sequence was optimized and applied to the synthesis of several polyhalogenated bicyclic γ-lactams and lactones from α,ω-diene substrates bearing trihaloacetamide or

• reactions with homobimetallic ruthenium–indenylidene complex 1 to generate active species in situ. The two catalytic processes were first carried out independently in a case study before the whole sequence was optimized and applied to the synthesis of several polyhalogenated bicyclic γ-lactams and lactones

Synthesis of fluorinated δ-lactams via cycloisomerization of gem-difluoropropargyl amides

• Satoru Arimitsu and
• Gerald B. Hammond

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2010, 6, No. 48, doi:10.3762/bjoc.6.48

• ; cycloisomerization; difluoropropargyl; enyne; ring-closing metathesis; Introduction It has been estimated that as many as 25% of all synthetic pharmaceutical drugs contain an amide bond [1]. Commonly, β- and γ-lactams are present in many natural products and pharmaceuticals, and the introduction of a gem

• ][6][7][8]. Our group’s entry in this arena started as a collaboration with Professor Fustero and resulted in the syntheses of fluorinated β- and γ-lactams [9][10][11][12][13]. This sparked our interest in the synthesis of larger-ring lactams, with six to eight members, because nitrogen-containing

Palladium- catalyzed cross coupling reactions of 4-bromo- 6H-1,2-oxazines

• Reinhold Zimmer,
• Elmar Schmidt,
• Michal Andrä,
• Marcel-Antoine Duhs,
• Igor Linder and
• Hans-Ulrich Reissig

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2009, 5, No. 44, doi:10.3762/bjoc.5.44

• derivatives constitute a versatile class of N,O heterocycles [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Considerable attention has been paid to 6H-1,2-oxazines 1 bearing a C-4,C-5-double bond [14][15][16][17][18], which are useful intermediates in the synthesis of γ-lactams [19], γ-amino acids [20], amino