Some recent applications of a-amino nitrile chemistry Dieter Enders* and John P. Shilvock Institut für Organishe Chemie, Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule, Professor-Pirlet Straße 1, 52074 Aachen, Germany. Fax: +49 (0) 241 8888 127. E-mail:
[email protected] Received 24th May 2000 Published on the Web 7th August 2000 Bifunctional a-amino nitriles are not only versatile inter- acids. It is also possible to reduce the nitrile group using lithium mediates in organic synthesis but also exhibit a valuable aluminium hydride as a convenient method of preparing dual reactivity, which has been utilized in a broad range of 1,2-diamines B. synthetic applications. This review highlights recent devel- A second extremely valuable use of a-amino nitriles is as opments in the chemistry of a-amino nitriles, including stable precursors to iminium ions, whereby loss of cyanide asymmetric synthesis of a-amino acids via Strecker reac- anion under a variety of conditions (e.g. use of silver salts, tions using chiral auxiliaries and catalysts, a-amino nitriles copper salts, Brønsted or Lewis acids and by thermolysis) as masked iminium ion equivalents in cationic reactions and generates an intermediate iminium species C which in turn may the synthesis of natural products and heterocycles, and a- be trapped with nucleophilic reagents. In this way, the cyano group can be substituted by a hydrogen atom using a metallation to provide nucleophilic acyl anion equivalents borohydride reagent or by a carbon chain using an organome- and applications to asymmetric Umpolung reactions. tallic reagent as in the Bruylants reaction or another carbon nucleophile to provide variously substituted amines D and E respectively.