Conspectus
Optically
active nitrogen-containing compounds have attracted substantial
attention due to their ubiquity in the cores of natural products and
bioactive molecules. Among the various synthetic approaches to nitrogenous
frameworks, catalytic asymmetric 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions are one
of the most attractive methods because of their powerful ability to
rapidly construct various chiral N-heterocycles.
In particular, N-metallated azomethine ylides, common
and readily available 1,3-dipoles, have been extensively applied in
dipolar cycloaddition reactions. Despite the fact that asymmetric
transformations of azomethine ylides have been investigated for decades,
most of the efforts have been directed toward the preparation of pyrrolidines
using glycinate-derived α-unsubstituted aldimine esters as the
precursors of the azomethine ylides. While α-substituted azomethine
ylides derived from amino esters other than glycinate have seldom
been harnessed, the construction of non-five-membered chiral N-heterocycles via 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions remains underexplored.
In addition, the asymmetric α-functionalization of aldimine
esters to prepare acyclic nitrogenous compounds such as α-amino
acids, in which an in situ-generated N-metallated
azomethine ylide serves as the nucleophile, has not been sufficiently
described.
In this Account, we mainly discuss the achievements
we have made
in the past decade toward broadening the applications of N-metallated azomethine ylides for the preparation of nitrogen-containing
compounds. We began our investigation with the design and synthesis
of a new type of chiral ligand, TF-BiphamPhos, which not only coordinates
with Lewis acids to activate dipolar species but also serves as an
H-bond donor to increase the reactivity of dipolarophiles with significantly
enhanced stereochemical control. Using the Cu(I) or Ag(I)/TF-BiphamPhos
complex as the catalyst, we achieved highly stereoselective (3+2)
cycloadditions of glycinate and non-glycinate-derived azomethine ylides
with diverse dipolarophiles, producing a variety of enantioenriched
pyrrolidines with multiple stereocenters in a single step. To further
expand the synthetic utility of N-metallated azomethine
ylides, we successfully developed higher order cycloadditions with
fulvenes, tropone, 2-acyl cycloheptatrienes, and pyrazolidinium ylides
serving as the reaction partner, and this reaction provides straightforward
access to enantioenriched fused piperidines, bridged azabicyclic
frameworks, and triazines via (3+6)- and (3+3)-type cycloadditions.
Using N-metallated azomethine ylides as the nucleophile,
we realized Cu(I)-catalyzed asymmetric 1,4-Michael additions with
α,β-unsaturated bisphosphates/Morita–Baylis–Hillman
products, furnishing an array of structurally diverse unnatural α-amino
acids. Based on the strategy of synergistic activation, we achieved
highly efficient dual Cu/Pd and Cu/Ir catalysis for the α-functionalization
of aldimine esters via the asymmetric allylic/allenylic alkylation
of N-metallated azomethine ylides. No...