Michael reaction of malonates to nitroolefins with chiral bifunctional organocatalysts, bearing both a thiourea and tertiary amino group, afforded Michael adducts with high yields and enantioselectivities (up to 95%, up to 93% ee).

Hydrogen-bonding interaction plays a crucial role in the molecular recognition and activation processes of various biologically important reactions that are mediated by enzymes and antibodies in living organisms. Recently, it has been shown that a hydrogen-bonding donor can be used as a general acid catalyst for various types of reactions in organic chemistry. In this article, we describe enantioselective reactions catalyzed by urea and thiourea derivatives as general acid catalysts as well as diastereoselective reactions. This perspective provides an overview of this rapidly growing field.

[reaction: see text] The aza-Henry reaction of imines with nitroalkanes was promoted by chiral thiourea with an N,N-dimethylamino group to give beta-nitroamines with good enantioselectivity. Various N-protected imines were examined as substrates. N-Phosphinoylimine gave the best result in terms of chemical yield and enantioselectivity (up to 91% yield, up to 76% ee).

Experimental procedure for preparation of catalyst 1b and its characterization data: S2.Characterization data of catalysts 1c-i: S4.The results of Petasis-type reaction of 2a, 2b and 3 with 4A using catalysts 1a-i: S6.General procedure for Petasis-type reaction of 2a-f: S7.Characterization data of obtained compounds 5a-6aF: S7.Conversion of the adduct 6aC to (+)-galipinine 7 and characterization data: S10.

We have developed several multifunctional thiourea catalysts bearing a tertiary amine or an 1,2-amino alcohol in expectation of their synchronous activation of a nucleophile and an electrophile through both acid-base and hydrogen-bonding interactions. From these studies, it was revealed that the weak acidity of thioureas compared with metallic Lewis acids could be overcome by this modification. The bifunctional aminothiourea could be used efficiently for a wide range of diastereoselective and enantioselective nucleophilic reactions such as Michael addition of 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds to nitroolefines, aza-Henry reaction of nitroalkanes to N-Boc imines, and hydrazination of cyclic b b-keto esters. We also discovered that multifunctional thiourea catalyst, bearing an 1,2-amino alcohol moiety, significantly accelerated the Petasis-type reaction of alkenylboronic acids to Nphenoxycarbonyl quinolinium salts, prepared from quinolines and phenyl chloroformate, to afford 1,2-addition products with high enantioselectivity (up to 97% ee). Furthermore, to expand the synthetic applicability of the thiourea-catalyzed asymmetric reactions, tandem organocatalyzed reactions were explored to establish the concise one-pot synthesis of chiral densely functionalized three-, five-, and six-membered compounds.

Domino reactions have received great attention as efficient synthetic methodologies for the construction of structurally complex molecules from simple materials in a single operation. Catalysts in domino reactions have also been well studied. In these reactions, a catalyst activates the substrate(s) only once, and the structure of the product is delineated at that time. Recently, the new concept of "tandem catalysis" in domino reactions, in which catalyst(s) sequentially activate more than two mechanistically distinct reactions, has been proposed. Tandem catalysis is categorized into three subclasses: orthogonal-, auto-, and assisted-tandem catalyses. Auto-tandem catalysis is defined as a process in which one catalyst promotes more than two fundamentally different reactions in a single reactor. An overview of recent and significant achievements in auto-tandem catalysis is presented in this paper.

A thiourea-catalyzed asymmetric Michael addition of activated methylene compounds to alpha,beta-unsaturated imides derived from 2-pyrrolidinone and 2-methoxybenzamide has been developed. In the case of 2-pyrrolidinone derivatives, the reaction with malononitrile proceeded in toluene with high enantioselectivity, providing the Michael adducts in good yields. However, the nucleophiles that could be used for this reaction were limited to malononitrile due to poor reactivity of the substrate. Further examination revealed that N-alkenoyl-2-methoxybenzamide was the best substrate among the corresponding benzamide derivatives bearing different substituents on the aromatic ring. Indeed, several activated methylene compounds such as malononitrile, methyl alpha-cyanoacetate, and nitromethane could be employed as a nucleophile to give the Michael adducts in good to excellent yields with up to 93% ee. The results of spectroscopic experiments clarified that this enhanced reactivity can be attributed to the intramolecular hydrogen-bonding interaction between the N-H of the imide and the methoxy group of the benzamide moiety. Thus, the key to the success of the catalytic enantioselective Michael addition is dual activation of the substrate by both intramolecular hydrogen bonding in the imide and intermolecular hydrogen bonding with thiourea 1a, as well as the activation of a nucleophile by the tertiary amine of the bifunctional thiourea.

The first enantioselective cyanoamidation of olefins provides quick access to a variety of 3,3-disubstituted oxindoles. The combination of Pd(dba)2, an optically active phosphoramidite, and N, N-dimethylpropylene urea (DMPU) in decalin were found to be the best conditions.