Highly diastereofacial anti-aldol reaction: practical synthesis of optically active anti-2-alkyl-3-hydroxycarboxylic acid ester units.

A variety of esters derived from commercially available norephedrine were used in diastereoselective anti-aldol reactions. The aldol reaction of designed 2-(N-2-methylbenzyl-N-2,4,6-trimethylbenzyl)amino-1-phenylpropanol esters 4a-d with aldehydes furnished anti-2-alkyl-3-hydroxycarboxylic acid esters in excellent diastereomeric ratios (>98:2) when LDA-Cp2ZrCl2 (0.3 equiv) was used for enolization, followed by transmetalation into the zirconium enolate for aldolization. The novel auxiliary 3 for the anti-aldol reaction does not exhibit the ordinary basicity of tertiary amines; 3 can be extracted from acidic media with organic solvents. Its use is, therefore, very advantageous not only for extraction of the aldol products from the acidic water solutions, but also for recovering the chiral auxiliary 3 after the reductive cleavage. Treatment of aldol or 3-protected aldol products with DIBAL-H or LiAlH4 affords the versatile synthons, 2-alkyl-propane-1,3-diols or those 3-protected diols in >98% ee's together with 3 in nearly quantitative recovery.