Strain-promoted S-arylation and alkenylation of sulfinamides using arynes and cyclic alkynes

The conversion of commercially available chiral sulfinamides into pharmaceutically useful chiral sulfoximines via direct SIVfunctionalization is synthetically attractive but challenging due to the competitive reaction of N-functionalization. Herein, we disclose a novel strain-release strategy to access stereospecific and chemoselective SIV-arylation and alkenylation of sulfinamides using arynes and strained cyclic alkynes. This method tolerates an unprecedented chemical diversity of functional groups attached to the nitrogen center(N-R). The origin of the high SIV-selectivity is elucidated by density functional theory calculations, suggesting a stepwise mechanism for the aryne substrates and a concerted mechanism for the cyclic alkynes.

Enantiomer-selective Living Polymerization of rac-Phenyl Isocyanide Using Chiral Palladium Catalyst

We report the polymerization of phenyl isocyanides with the chiral palladium（II） initiating system. The resulting polymers with optically active properties were obtained by polymerization of the racemic isocyanide monomer （rac-1）, and enantiomerically unbalanced polymerization of the monomer was found, providing substantial evidence for the enantiomer-selective polymerization of rac- 1 mediated through chiral catalyst. A comparison between the enantiomerically pure monomers, 4-isocyanobenzoyl-L-alanine decyl ester （1 s） and 4-isocyanobenzoyl-D-alanine decyl ester （1 r）, revealed a drastic discrepancy in the reactivity ratio of their homopolymerizations. It turned out that the monomer reactivity ratio of ls was higher than that of lr with chiral ligands. The results clearly demonstrated the inclination for incorporation of the ls enantiomer during the polymerization process and thus resulted in the enantiomer-selective polymerization in this system. The effects of the catalyst chirality on the optically active properties of polymerization were investigated, and it was concluded that the formation of higher-ordered conformation with a handed helicity might be attributed to the chiral induction of chiral palladium（II） catalyst. Moreover, the polymers obtained through the enantiomer-selective polymerization of the enantiomerically pure monomer were with a significant improvement of the optical activity if the chirality of the monomer and the catalyst matched with each other.

Facile synthesis of α-difluoromethyl α-propargylamines from CF_2H-substituted N-tert-butanesulfinyl ketimines

Stereoselective approach for preparation ofα-difluoromethylα-propargylamines has been developed.1,2-Addition of lithium acetylides to diverse chiral difluoromethylated（S）-N-tert-butanesulfinyl ketimines by using Ti（O^iPr）_4 as catalyst and THF as solvent afforded N-tert-butanesulfinamides in good to excellent yields（51-93%） and good diastereoselectivities（dr.85：15 to 93：7）.The N-tert -butanesulfinyl group can be readily cleaved under mild acidic condition（4 mol/L HCl in dioxane） to provide the correspondingα-difiuoromethylα-propargylamine in excellent yields（90-95%）.