Journal of the American Chemical Society
Journal of the American Chemical Society
5 years ago

Direct Catalytic Desaturation of Lactams Enabled by Soft Enolization

Direct Catalytic Desaturation of Lactams Enabled by Soft Enolization
Ming Chen, Guangbin Dong
A direct catalytic method is described for the α,β-desaturation of N-protected lactams to their conjugated unsaturated counterparts under mildly acidic conditions. The reaction is consistently operated at room temperature and tolerates a wide range of functional groups, showing reactivity complementary to that of prior desaturation methods. Lactams with various ring sizes and substituents at different positions all reacted smoothly. The synthetic utility of this method is demonstrated in a concise synthesis of Rolipram. In addition, linear amides also prove to be competent substrates, and the phthaloyl-protected product serves as a convenient precursor to access various conjugated carboxylic acid derivatives. Strong bases are avoided in this desaturation approach, and the key is to merge soft enolization with a Pd-catalyzed oxidation process.

Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jacs.7b04722

DOI: 10.1021/jacs.7b04722

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.