Studies of the Mechanism and Origins of Enantioselectivity for the Chiral Phosphoric Acid-Catalyzed Stereoselective Spiroketalization Reactions

J Am Chem Soc. 2016 Jan 13;138(1):444-56. doi: 10.1021/jacs.5b12528. Epub 2015 Dec 23.

Abstract

Mechanistic and computational studies were conducted to elucidate the mechanism and the origins of enantiocontrol for asymmetric chiral phosphoric acid-catalyzed spiroketalization reactions. These studies were designed to differentiate between the S(N)1-like, S(N)2-like, and covalent phosphate intermediate-based mechanisms. The chiral phosphoric acid-catalyzed spiroketalization of deuterium-labeled cyclic enol ethers revealed a highly diastereoselective syn-selective protonation/nucleophile addition, thus ruling out long-lived oxocarbenium intermediates. Hammett analysis of the reaction kinetics revealed positive charge accumulation in the transition state (ρ = -2.9). A new computational reaction exploration method along with dynamics simulations supported an asynchronous concerted mechanism with a relatively short-lived polar transition state (average lifetime = 519 ± 240 fs), which is consistent with the observed inverse secondary kinetic isotope effect of 0.85. On the basis of these studies, a transition state model explaining the observed stereochemical outcome has been proposed. This model predicts the enantioselective formation of the observed enantiomer of the product with 92% ee, which matches the experimentally observed value.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.