New advances in asymmetric organocatalysis

• Radovan Šebesta

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

• within the area. Organocatalytic reactions are highly suitable components of cascade transformations as exemplified by the seminal work of Enders [13]. Besides traditional enamine and iminium activation of carbonyl compounds other activation modes were uncovered which significantly broadened the

Reactions of 3-aryl-1-(trifluoromethyl)prop-2-yn-1-iminium salts with 1,3-dienes and styrenes

• Thomas Schneider,
• Michael Keim,
• Bianca Seitz and
• Gerhard Maas

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2020, 16, 2064–2072, doi:10.3762/bjoc.16.173

• effect of the iminium activation. The Diels–Alder reaction of alkyne 1a with 2,3-dimethylbutadiene also occurred under very mild conditions and yielded the iminium-substituted 1,4-cyclohexadiene 4-Ch (Scheme 2), which, due to its high sensitivity toward moisture, was not purified but was further

Investigations towards the stereoselective organocatalyzed Michael addition of dimethyl malonate to a racemic nitroalkene: possible route to the 4-methylpregabalin core structure

• Denisa Vargová,
• Rastislav Baran and
• Radovan Šebesta

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2018, 14, 553–559, doi:10.3762/bjoc.14.42

• . Stereoselective Michael addition, one of the most important organocatalytic reactions [8] usually serves as a key stereoinduction transformation. Earlier studies, performed by Hayashi and Wang employed iminium activation to perform the enantioselective addition of nitromethane to enals for syntheses of baclofen

Organocatalytic tandem Michael addition reactions: A powerful access to the enantioselective synthesis of functionalized chromenes, thiochromenes and 1,2-dihydroquinolines

• Chittaranjan Bhanja,
• Satyaban Jena,
• Sabita Nayak and
• Seetaram Mohapatra

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2012, 8, 1668–1694, doi:10.3762/bjoc.8.191

• to 56%) and enantioselectivities in the range of 85–91% ee (Scheme 9). Mechanistically the reaction involves the iminium activation of the α,β-unsaturated cyclic enones by the chiral pyrrolidine catalyst. Very recently, Xu and co-workers [51] reported an improved protocol for the same reaction

• salicylaldehydes 1 and nitroalkenes 27 employing (S)-1-methyl-2-(pyrrolidin-2-ylmethylthio)-1H-imidazole (VIII) as organocatalyst in the presence of salicylic acid as cocatalyst and in DMSO as solvent (Scheme 14). The reaction was interpreted as following an aromatic iminium activation strategy and provided 2H

• -mercaptobenzaldehydes 36 and α,β-unsaturated cyclic ketones 38 proceeded in a highly chemoselective fashion, furnishing the corresponding products 39 in high yield and with moderate to good ee. The mechanism proposed involves the same iminium activation (Scheme 18) of the α,β-unsaturated cyclic ketones by the chiral

A quantitative approach to nucleophilic organocatalysis

• Herbert Mayr,
• Sami Lakhdar,
• Biplab Maji and
• Armin R. Ofial

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2012, 8, 1458–1478, doi:10.3762/bjoc.8.166

• -imidazoline relative to 2-benzylidene-imidazolidine is explained by the gain of aromaticity during electrophilic additions to the imidazoline derivatives. O-Methylated Breslow intermediates are a hundred-fold less nucleophilic than deoxy Breslow intermediates. Keywords: enamine activation; iminium activation