Synthesis 2002(14): 2037-2042
DOI: 10.1055/s-2002-34365
PAPER
© Georg Thieme Verlag Stuttgart · New York

A Short, Convenient Synthesis of Enantiomerically Pure N-Protected 2-Azanorbornane­-3-carboxaldehydes and Related Amino Alcohols

Miroslav Genova, Gerd Scherera, Martin Studerb, Andreas Pfaltz*a
a Department of Chemistry, University of Basel, St. Johanns-Ring 19, 4056 Basel, Switzerland
e-Mail: andreas.pfaltz@unibas.ch;
b Solvias AG, Klybeckstrasse 191, 4002 Basel, Switzerland
Further Information

Publication History

Received 28 June 2002
Publication Date:
26 September 2002 (online)

Abstract

The aza-Diels-Alder reaction between cyclopentadiene and the bis(1-phenylethyl)imine of glyoxal provides a short route to the two enantiomerically pure exo-diastereomers of N-(1-phenylethyl)-2-azanorbornane-3-carboxaldehyde. Addition of 1-naphthylmagnesium bromide to these aldehydes followed by reductive removal of the 1-phenylethyl group affords the corresponding amino alcohols with high diastereoselectivity. In the Pt-catalyzed hydrogenation of ethyl pyruvate, 64% ee was obtained when using these amino alcohols as modifiers.

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Crystals of the compound under investigation were mounted on a Nonius KappaCCD diffractometer. Data collection and integration of the dataset was carried out using the Nonius collect suite (COLLECT Software, Nonius BV 1997-2001). The structures were solved using direct methods using the program SIR92. [10] Least squares refinement was carried out using the program CRYSTALS. [11] Plots were produced using Ortep-3 for Windows. [12] Chebychev polynomial weights were used to complete the refinement. [13] Crystallographic data have been deposited with the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Center (deposit number: 187733).