Controlling Cyclic Dienamine Reactivity in Radical tert-Alkylation for Molecular Diversity to Synthesize Multicyclic Compounds Possessing a Quaternary Carbon.

Synthesis of diverse sterically congested molecules from a single important intermediate is one of the ideal synthetic strategies in organic synthesis. In this paper, we found that γ-oxoalkyl substituted cyclohexenone derivatives (OAC) possessing a quaternary carbon are a useful key intermediate to derive both congested fused [5,6] rings and spirocycles. For this purpose, we have established an efficient synthetic method to obtain OAC by tertiary alkylation of β-methylcyclohexenone derivatives using α-bromocarbonyl compounds as a tertiary alkyl source. The key to the success of this reaction is controlling the reactivity of the dienamine intermediate. While there have been many reports on enamine reactions, dienamine reactions have not been well studied. Herein, we report controlling reactivity of dienamines and molecular diversification from OAC.