Studies Relating to Aziridine Antitumor Antibiotics. Part I. Asymmetric Syntheses. Part II. Chiral Aziridines and their Conversion to α-Aminoacids

Abstract

Separable diastereomeric cis-l-menthyl 2-phenyl-3-aziridinecarboxylates (4 and 5) were prepared by the Gabriel reaction. N-Acylation with p-nitrobenzoyl chloride or p-anisoyl chloride of 4 and 5 gives 7 and 8, and 23 and 24, respectively. Sodium iodide-catalyzed rearrangement of the N-acylated aziridines is regiospecific with exclusive attack at C-2 and from 8 is obtained the chiral 2-oxazolines cis-9 and trans-10 in a ratio of 30:70 together with the unsaturated amide 11. The structure of the latter was proven by independent synthesis. The intermediate l-menthyl N-p-nitrobenzoyl-3-iodophenyl-alaninate (18) was isolated at lower temperatures and shown to form the equilibrium mixture of 9 and 10 with triethylamine owing to partial racemization by a Finkelstein identity reaction. Use of an N-p-anisoyl substituent in the aziridine improves the yield of chiral 2-oxazolines by preventing the formation of 11, and allows the separation of pure cis- and trans-oxazolines for characterization. The aziridines bearing N-p-anisoyl substituents display a greater sensitivity to attack by weaker nucleophiles than the p-N-nitrobenzoyl analogs.Acid hydrolysis of 9 and 10 gives D-allo-β-phenylserine in an optical yield of about 17% from which 5 and 8 are tentatively assigned the 2R,3R configuration. Similar acid hydrolysis of the 2-p-anisyl-2-oxazoline (26b) allowed the isolation of the intermediate l-menthyl O-anisoyl-allo-β-phenylserinate (30a), hydrolysis of which gave D-allo-β-phenylserine in about 18% optical yield. The isolation of allo-β-phenylserine only from cis- and trans-2-oxazolines is attributed to acid-catalyzed inversion at the benzylic center to the conformationally more stable allo form.