No abstract

In the past few decades natural and non-natural prolines-and among the latter, a-quaternary derivatives are of great interest-have found wide application in the design of new organocatalysts [1] and chiral auxiliaries [2] for asymmetric synthesis. Furthermore, non-natural proline units have been incorporated in new peptide chains, affording peptidomimetics with different conformational flexibility and correlated drastic changes of their secondary structures. [3] In the best cases, these alterations enhance the resistance of the modified proteins to metabolic and chemical degradation and hence their overall biological activity.A number of strategies [4] -and, among them, those that adopt the well-known Kawabatas principles of "memory of chirality" (MOC) [5] and of "chiral non-racemic enolate" [6] emerge as the most appealing-have been proposed for the stereoselective synthesis of quaternary a-amino acids. In particular, the synthetic methods for quaternary prolines [7] involve the enantioselective functionalization of l-proline derivatives, for example, through self-reproduction of chirality, diastereoselective alkylation, or transfer of stereochemical information via cyclic ammonium ylides.Recently, we reported a straightforward protocol for the enantioselective synthesis of quaternary N-alkyl-a-4-nitrophenyl-a-amino tert-butyl esters, through N-alkylation of the corresponding a-N-(4-nitrophenyl)sulfonamido esters, followed by degradative rearrangement, with loss of SO 2 .[8]The one-pot overall process is highly stereoselective, ees up to 98 %; in contrast, the reaction conducted with the preformed N-alkyl-a-N-(4-nitrophenyl)sulfonamido ester gave the corresponding quaternary amino ester with very low ees, for example, 28 % ee in the case of N-allyl phenylalanine derivative. In the present paper we describe the rearrangement under basic conditions of N-(arylsulfonyl)proline tert-butyl esters 1, which showed a different behavior of that found for N-alkylated open-chain sulfonamido esters. Preliminary runs (Table 1), conducted on N-(4-nitrobenzenesul-[a] F.

Phase-transfer catalysis (PTC) is a well-known useful tool to develop sustainable processes. Benefits deriving from using PTC are particularly evident in oxidation chemistry where it has been possible to replace many toxic, aggressive reagents with harmless and milder oxidants such as bleach or hydrogen peroxide.

The fundamental role of water in anion-promoted reactions carried out under both liquid-liquid and solid-liquid phase-transfer catalysis (LL-and SL-PTC, respectively) conditions is reviewed. In particular, the hydration effect on the quaternary onium salt extraction constants, anion selectivity coefficients, and anion reactivity under LL-PTC conditions is reported. The effect of added water on SL-PTC reaction rates is also included. In addition, guidelines for optimizing the amount of water in the application of PTC to organic synthesis are proposed.

The 'one-pot' stereoselective conversion of N-(4-nitrobenzene)sulfonyl-alpha-amino acid tert-butyl esters into the corresponding N-alkyl-alpha-(4-nitrophenyl)-alpha-amino esters has been realized through N-alkylation of the starting amido esters, followed by N-C(alpha) migration of the p-nitrophenyl group and the loss of sulfur dioxide; the asymmetric induction is determined by an intermediate non-racemic enolate, without the need of an external source of chirality.