Recent advances in organocatalytic asymmetric aza-Michael reactions of amines and amides

• Pratibha Sharma,
• Raakhi Gupta and
• Raj K. Bansal

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2021, 17, 2585–2610, doi:10.3762/bjoc.17.173

• subsequently deprotonates pyrrole to provide the stronger nucleophilic pyrrolide anion [27]. Similarly, Liu et al. accomplished an asymmetric intramolecular aza-Michael addition of various enone carbamates 10 using a chiral cinchona-based primary-tertiary diamine as catalyst to obtain 2-substituted piperidines

• appears that in this case, both activation mechanisms, namely through hydrogen bonding and iminium ion formation are operating. Using the same chiral cinchona-based primary-tertiary diamine as catalyst (cat. 11), Zhai et al. developed a highly efficient intramolecular enantioselective aza-Michael addition

Primary-tertiary diamine-catalyzed Michael addition of ketones to isatylidenemalononitrile derivatives

• Akshay Kumar and
• Swapandeep Singh Chimni

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2014, 10, 929–935, doi:10.3762/bjoc.10.91

• in Michael addition reactions via an iminium–enamine catalysis [31][32][33][34][35][36][37]. A few applications of primary-tertiary diamine in aldol reactions have been published [39][40][41][42][43]. To the best of our knowledge, however, the catalytic potential of amino acids derived primary

• -tertiary diamine organocatalysts for Michael reaction via enamine activation has not been investigated so far [38]. With readily available and inexpensive natural amino acids as a chiral source, we developed very simple primary-tertiary diamine organocatalysts (Figure 2) for asymmetric aldol reactions [44

• % ee after a reaction time of 24 hours (Table 3, entry 6) [46]. Even though an excellent level of enantioselectivity of the product was observed with catalyst 1a we screened different diamine catalysts in our quest for a superior catalyst. L-Isoleucine derived primary-tertiary diamine catalysts having