Expedient Access to Enantioenriched 1-Azaspiro Cyclobutanones Enabled by Modified Heyns Rearrangement

Leveraging the unexplored regions of chemical space, the integration of spirocyclic cyclobutane in a molecular scaffold opens up a new vista in modern drug discovery. Despite recent advancements in achieving the synthesis of such motifs, strategies for their asymmetric construction have not been well-recognized and remain a formidable challenge. Herein, for the first time, we have demonstrated a chiral Brønsted acid-catalyzed enantioselective synthesis of 1-azaspiro cyclobutanone enabled by an unusual reactivity of enamine that explore the potentiality of Heyns rearrangement upon electrophilic modification. This design strategy offers viable access to a wide range of cyclobutanone containing spiroindoline and spiropyrrolidine derivatives in good yields with excellent stereoselectivities (up to >99 % ee, >20 : 1 dr). Furthermore, the practicality of this methodology has been shown by a scale-up synthesis of spirocyclic products and their facile post-synthetic modifications.