Dedicated to Professor Josep M. Ribó on the occasion of his 70th birthdayThe 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of azomethine ylides with alkenes is one of the most powerful and convergent methods for the stereoselective synthesis of pyrrolidines, [1] a heterocyclic moiety widely present in the structure of natural products, pharmaceuticals [2] and chiral ligands. [3] Improving the overall chemical and stereochemical efficiency of this reaction, pioneered by Grigg with stoichiometric metal chiral complexes, [4] a great effort has been devoted in recent years in the development of catalytic asymmetric protocols. In this field a wide variety of outstanding chiral complex catalysts have been reported, [5] mainly Ag I , [5f,g,j,m,q-s] Cu I[5e,h,i,k,l,o,t-w] and Cu II[5d] catalysts, but also Zn II , [5x] Ni II[5n] and Ca II[5p] complexes. In addition, several organocatalytic asymmetric methods have been also developed in the last few years. [6] Concerning the scope of the catalytic asymmetric 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of azomethine ylides, although there is an ample tolerance with regard to the nature of the dipolarophile (i.e., a,b-unsaturated esters, maleimides, a,b-unsaturated nitriles, enones, enals, nitroalkenes, vinyl sulfones and fullerene), the structural variety at the azomethine dipole is much more limited. By far most catalytic asymmetric versions reported to date are based on the use of a-iminocarbonyl substrates, specifically a-iminoesters. The great effectiveness of a-iminoesters as dipole precursors relies on the enhanced acidity of the a-position and the formation of a robust five-membered, N,O-bidentate-metalated, azomethine ylide, which facilitates the asymmetric induction from the chiral ligand. The inherent limitation of this strategy is the restricted structural versatility with regard to the substitution at C2, always providing pyrrolidines with a C2 carboxylate ester substitution.To access other types of substituted pyrrolidines, a-iminonitrile precursors are very appealing, since in the resulting 2-cyanopyrrolidines [7] the cyano group could further act as leaving group allowing its formal substitution by hydrogen or by a carbon nucleophile, [8] and thus leading to a wider variety of substituted pyrrolidines. Two decades ago Kane-A C H T U N G T R E N N U N G masa, Tsuge et al. reported the non-enantioselective thermal [9] and LDA-promoted (LDA = lithium diisopropyl-
A C H T U N G T R E N N U N G amide)[10] cycloaddition of alkyl-substituted a-iminonitriles with electron-deficient dipolarophiles, but the catalytic asymmetric version of this process remained to be developed. We describe herein the first catalytic asymmetric procedure for the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of a-iminonitriles, as well as some synthetic applications and a DFT theoretical study on the presumed nature of the metalated 1,3-dipole.To evaluate the viability of a-iminonitriles as dipole precursors in catalytic asymmetric 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions, we first studied the reaction of N-benzylidenaminoacetonitrile (1) with meth...