Although many chiral ligands for asymmetric catalysis have been developed, there is still a need for new structures allowing the modular approach. Recently, easy synthesis of chiral pyridine-containing β-amino alcohols has been elaborated by opening respective epoxides with enantiomeric 1-phenylethylamine. This paper reports the synthetic transformation of β-amino alcohols into the new complexing pyridine-containing seleno- and thioethers. The amino alcohols were effectively converted to cyclic sulfonamidates, which were reacted with thiolates or phenyl selenide nucleophile. The reaction was diastereoselective, and its outcome depended on the configuration at the substitution center. The problem was discussed considering DFT optimized structures of both diastereomeric sulfonamidates. New amino-aldimine ligands were also synthesized from chiral pyridine-containing diamines. Nine new chiral ligands were tested in the Tsuji-Trost allylic alkylation resulting in the enantiomerically enriched product in up to 75% ee. The observed stereochemical induction agrees with the prevailing nucleophilic attack at the allylic carbon laying opposite to the complexing nitrogen of pyridine in η3-allylic intermediate complexes.
Keywords: asymmetric allylic alkylation; chiral diamine Schiff bases; chiral ligands; chiral pyridine compounds; thioethers, selenoethers.