Small Organic Molecules for Direct Aldol Reaction

Since the pioneering finding by List and Barbas III and their coworkers that L-proline could work as a catalyst in the intermolecular direct aldol reaction, the concept of small organic molecules as catalysts has received great attention. However, new organic molecule which have better catalysis ability are reported scarcely. Our groups1 found L-Prolinamides 1 to be active catalysts for the direct aldol reaction of 4-nitrobenaldehyde with neat acetone at room temperature. The enantioselecti…

Small Organic Molecules for Direct Aldol Reaction

Since the pioneering finding by List and Barbas Ⅲ and their coworkers that L-proline could work as a catalyst in the intermolecular direct aldol reaction, the concept of small organic molecules as catalysts has received great attention. However, new organic molecule which have better catalysis ability are reported scarcely.Our groups1 found L-Prolinamides 1 to be active catalysts for the direct aldol reaction of 4-nitrobenaldehyde with neat acetone at room temperature. The enantioselectivity increases as the amide N-H becomes more acidic and thus a better hydrogen bond donor. Introducing another proton donor, hydroxyl, in the catalyst lead to a further improvement in the catalytic enantioselectivity.The calculations reveal that the amide N-H and the terminal hydroxyl groups form hydrogen bonds with the benzaldehyde substrate. These hydrogen bonds reduce the activation energy and cause high enantioselectivity.Catalyst 2, prepared from L-proline and (1S, 2S)-diphenyl-2-aminoethanol, exhibits high enantioselectivities of up to 93% ee for aromatic aldehydes and up to ＞99% ee for aliphatic aldehydes. It is noteworthy that our results refuted the conventional wisdom that the carboxylic acid group of proline is a reqirement for high enatioselectivity and provide a powerful strategy in the molecular design of new organic catalyst because plentiful chiral resource containing multi-hydrogen bonding donor, for example, peptides.Very recently, we found that L-proline-based peptides 3-7 can catalyze the aldol reactions of hydroxyacetone with aldehydes 8 in aqueous media, to give 1,4-diols 9, the disfavored products with either aldolase or L-proline. Both peptides 5 and 6 give good results.The abilities of peptides 5 and 6 to catalyze the direct aldol reactions of hydroxyacetone with avariety of aldehydes were examined under optimal conditions. The results are shown in table. Highyields and entioselectivities of up to 96% ee were observed for aromatic aldehydes bearingelectron-withdrawing groups.