Enantiodivergence by minimal modification of an acyclic chiral secondary aminocatalyst.

Dai, Jun; Wang, Zhuang; Deng, Yuhua; Zhu, Lei; Peng, Fangzhi; Lan, Yu; Shao, Zhihui · Nat Commun · 2019

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

The development of enantiodivergent catalysis for the preparation of both enantiomers of a chiral compound is of importance in pharmaceutical and bioorganic chemistry. With the design of a class of reactive and stereoselective organocatalysts, acyclic chiral secondary amines, a method for achieving the enantiodivergence is developed simply by changing the secondary N-i-Bu- to N-Me-group within the catalyst architecture while maintaining the same absolute configuration of the catalysts, which modulates the catalyst conformation. This catalyst-controlled enantiodivergent method not only enables challenging asymmetric transformations to occur in an enantiodivergent manner but also features a high level of stereocontrol and broad scope that is demonstrated in eight different reactions (90 examples), all delivering both enantiomers of a range of structurally diverse products including hitherto less accessible, yet important, compounds in good yields with high stereoselectivities.