Diarylcuprates for Selective Syntheses of Multifunctionalized Ketones from Thioesters under Mild Conditions.

Ketones were selectively synthesized from thioesters by using diarylcuprates(I) generated in situ from copper(I) salts and aryl Grignard reagents in a 1 : 1.3-1.5 ratio under ambient temperature. During the ketone synthesis, various functional groups, such as carbonyl (ketones, esters, and amides), O-protecting groups, halogens, and heteroarenes, were tolerated to afford multifunctionalized ketones in excellent yields. This copper-mediated ketone synthesis could be applied to the synthesis of not only gluconolactone-derived ketone 6, a synthetic intermediate in the transformation to the SGLT2 inhibitor canagliflozin, but also thiolactol 8, a valuable synthetic intermediate for (+)-biotin. Control experiments on an isolated diphenylcuprate(I), [CuPh2 ]- (12), and DFT calculations revealed that this ketone synthesis proceeded by oxidative addition of the C-S bond of thioesters to [CuPh2 ]- , while reductive elimination from the CuIII intermediate produced the corresponding ketone and an inactive species [(RS)CuPh]- , the latter reacted with [CuPh]4 (11) to regenerate the reactive diphenylcuprate(I).

Syntheses of SGLT2 Inhibitors by Ni- and Pd-Catalyzed Fukuyama Coupling Reactions.

Nickel- and palladium-catalyzed Fukuyama coupling reactions of a d-gluconolactone-derived thioester with arylzinc reagents at ambient temperature provided the corresponding multifunctional aryl ketones in high yield. Ligand screening for the nickel-catalyzed Fukuyama coupling reactions indicated that 1,2-bis(dicyclohexylphosphino)ethane (dCype) served as a superior supporting ligand to improve the product yield. In addition, Pd/C was a practical alternative that enabled ligand-free Fukuyama coupling reactions and was efficiently applied to the key C-C bond-forming step to prepare canagliflozin and dapagliflozin, which are diabetic SGLT2 inhibitors of current interest.

Rapid regio- and multi-coupling reactivity of 2,3-dibromobenzofurans with atom-economic triarylbismuths under palladium catalysis.

A regio- and chemoselective cross-coupling study using 2,3-dibromobenzofurans and 2,3,5-tribromobenzofuran was achieved with sub-stoichiometric loadings of triarylbismuths as atom-economic reagents under Pd-catalyzed conditions. As part of this study, various 2,3-diaryl- and 2,3,5-triarylbenzofuran products were obtained in high yields, involving one-pot operations and short reaction times.