An experimental and computational study of the enantioselective lithiation of N-Boc-pyrrolidine using sparteine-like chiral diamines.

The enantioselective lithiation of N-Boc-pyrrolidine using sec-butyllithium and isopropyllithium in the presence of sparteine-like diamines has been studied experimentally and computationally at various theoretical levels through to B3P86/6-31G*. Of the (-)-cytisine-derived diamines (N-Me, N-Et, N-(n)Bu, N-CH(2)(t)Bu, N-(i)Pr) studied experimentally, the highest enantioselectivity (er 95:5) was observed with the least sterically hindered N-Me-substituted diamine, leading to preferential removal of the pro-R proton i.e.

Concise asymmetric synthesis of (-)-sparteine.

A six-step asymmetric synthesis of natural (-)-sparteine from ethyl 7-iodohept-2-enoate is reported, involving a connective Michael addition of an amino ester-derived enolate to an alpha,beta-unsaturated amino ester.

Synthesis of sparteine-like chiral diamines and evaluation in the enantioselective lithiation-substitution of N-(tert-butoxycarbonyl)pyrrolidine.

Three chiral diamines were synthesised and evaluated as sparteine surrogates in the lithiation-substitution of N-(tert-butoxycarbonyl)pyrrolidine. The synthesis and attempted resolution of sparteine-like diamines [(1S*,2R*,8R*)-10-methyl-6,10-diazatricyclo[6.3.

A readily-accessible (+)-sparteine surrogate.

A "(+)-sparteine-like" chiral diamine, readily synthesized in three steps from (-)-cytisine, has been evaluated in four different asymmetric transformations; in each case, selectivity in an enantiocomplementary fashion to (-)-sparteine was observed.