D. Jean Burnell
Dalhousie University
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Featured researches published by D. Jean Burnell.
Organic Letters | 2009
Vanessa M. Marx; D. Jean Burnell
Treatment of an allenyl vinyl ketone with trifluoroacetic acid leads to Nazarov cyclization, and the intermediate carbocation is trapped efficiently by trifluoroacetate. Hydrolysis of the ester with methanol and basic alumina provides, in good to excellent overall yield, a 5-hydroxycyclopent-2-enone in which the alcohol is predominantly trans to a substituent at C-4.
Journal of the American Chemical Society | 2010
Vanessa M. Marx; D. Jean Burnell
Treatment of an allenyl vinyl ketone with BF(3) x Et(2)O leads to a cyclic oxyallyl cation by a Nazarov reaction, and when this reaction is conducted in the presence of an acyclic diene, [4 + 3] and [3 + 2] products are obtained efficiently with high regio- and stereoselectivity. The proportion of [4 + 3] to [3 + 2] product depends on the substitution on the diene. Cyclic dienes react with the oxyallyl cation by forming only one carbon-carbon bond, but the site of bond formation can be affected by steric hindrance. Electron-rich alkenes intercept the allyl cation by forming one carbon-carbon bond, or two carbon-carbon bonds through [3 + 2] cyclization. In some instances, further treatment of the initial products with BF(3) x Et(2)O leads to equilibrated products in good yield.
Journal of Organic Chemistry | 2009
Franklyn K. MacDonald; D. Jean Burnell
A variety of alpha,beta-unsaturated 1,3-diketones cyclize to 2,3-dihydro-4H-pyran-4-ones in an acidic aqueous medium, with exceptions being alpha,beta-unsaturated 1,3-diketones in which the beta carbon is substituted by a phenyl group. Addition of 1-butanamine to the reaction medium results in the formation of 2,3-dihydro-4-pyridinones, which appear to arise via an initial 1,4-addition of the amine to the alpha,beta-unsaturated 1,3-diketones.
Chemistry: A European Journal | 2011
Vanessa M. Marx; Rhonda L. Stoddard; Gavin S. Heverly-Coulson; D. Jean Burnell
Alkyl substitution α to the ketone of an allenyl vinyl ketone enhances Nazarov reactivity by inhibiting alternative pathways involving the allene moiety and through electron donation and/or steric hindrance. This substitution pattern also accelerates Nazarov cyclisation by increasing the population of the reactive conformer and by stabilising the oxyallyl cation intermediate. Furthermore, α substitution by an alkyl group does not alter the regioselectivity of interrupted Nazarov reactions when the oxyallyl cation intermediate is intercepted by addition of an oxygen nucleophile, or by [4+3] cyclisation with acyclic dienes. The regioselectivity of the Nazarov process for allenyl vinyl ketones was determined to be a result of an electronic bias in the oxyallyl cation intermediate. Computational data are consistent with this observation.
Chemical Communications | 2012
Josée Boudreau; Marc-André Courtemanche; Vanessa M. Marx; D. Jean Burnell; Frédéric-Georges Fontaine
The addition of the ambiphilic molecule Me(2)AlCH(2)PMe(2) (1) to the allenyl vinyl ketone 2 gave a trapped Nazarov reaction product. Under kinetic control, the addition of the phosphine was on the methylated carbon, contrary to expected steric and electronic considerations. Computational data pointed to hydrogen bonding between the phosphine and the methyl group guiding the regiochemistry of this reaction. This product rearranged to provide the expected, regioisomeric Nazarov product. With additional 1 this compound yielded a Michael-addition product via a retro-Nazarov process.
Journal of Organic Chemistry | 2015
François M. LeFort; Vinayak Mishra; Graham D. Dexter; Timothy D. R. Morgan; D. Jean Burnell
The oxyallyl cation intermediate from the Lewis acid mediated Nazarov reaction of an allenyl vinyl ketone was intercepted by acyclic, 2-silyloxy-substituted butadienes by highly regioselective (4 + 3) cycloadditions. Stereoselectivity was often modest, but in some instances steric interactions were responsible for high selectivity. The results are consistent with concerted (4 + 3) cycloadditions. In many instances, the (4 + 3) products were susceptible to fragmentation or rearrangement in the presence of the Lewis acid.
Journal of Organic Chemistry | 2015
Timothy D. R. Morgan; Luc M. LeBlanc; Giselle H. Ardagh; Russell J. Boyd; D. Jean Burnell
Nazarov reactions mediated by BF3-etherate of a series of carbon-substituted allenyl vinyl ketones provided intermediates in which substituents on the termini of the allenes had rotated away from the vinyl moieties, and these intermediates were trapped by (4 + 3)-cyclizations. A computational examination of the torquoselectivity of these Nazarov reactions confirmed a kinetic preference for the observed isomers and pointed to steric interactions and the degree of allene deformation as significant factors in determining the torquoselectivity. The study also suggested that the high proportion of one geometrical isomer in the Nazarov products might also be due to some preferential trapping of the major Nazarov intermediate.
Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry | 2011
Paul D. Thornton; T. Stanley Cameron; D. Jean Burnell
Tandem oxy-Cope and transannular vinylogous aldol reactions and/or vinylogous retro-aldol, conjugate addition, and transannular vinylogous aldol reactions transformed some tricyclic vinyl enones into fused tetracycles under basic conditions. Mesylates derived from similar tetracyclic products underwent efficient skeletal reorganization via transannular ring-opening but then different modes of transannular ring-closure upon treatment with tert-butoxide.
Journal of Physical Chemistry B | 2017
Zhe Li; D. Jean Burnell; Russell J. Boyd
Cytochrome P450 enzymes were recently engineered to catalyze the C-H amination reaction of aryl sulfonyl azides with excellent regio- and stereoselectivity (Arnold and co-workers J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2014 , 136 , 15505 ). The mechanism of this reaction was studied by quantum mechanical (QM)/molecular mechanical (MM) calculations in this work. The C-H activation is found to be a stepwise process consisting of hydrogen abstraction (H-abstraction) of the reactive C-H bond by an iron nitrenoid cofactor to produce the biradical intermediate and subsequent radical rebinding to form the final product. The rate of rotation of the carbon radical center was estimated to be much faster than that of radical rebinding, which implies that the H-abstraction does not determine the stereoselectivity. For mutant A, the H-abstraction step has a barrier of 16.7 kcal/mol, which is 3.0 kcal/mol higher than that of the following radical rebinding step. The H-abstraction step determines the regioselectivity, but the radical rebinding step determines the stereoselectivity. Barriers of these two steps are 16.1 and 27.5 kcal/mol, respectively, for mutant B. It is different from mutant A in that the radical rebinding step has the higher barrier and determines both the regio- and stereoselectivity. The initial distances between the hydrogens of reactive C-H bonds and the iron nitrenoid were found to not correlate with their reactivities. The calculated barriers are qualitatively consistent with the experimentally observed regio- and stereoselectivity with the exception of the stereoselectivity of mutant B. The lower barriers of mutant A presumably come from the stabilization effect of the H-bond between G265 and the sulfone O. This H-bond does not exist in mutant B. The conformation of the protein backbone, with the exception of the active site, does not change much (RMSD < 0.05) along the reaction pathway.
Canadian Journal of Chemistry | 2010
Ian R. Pottie; Sheldon N. CraneS.N. Crane; Anna Lee GosseA.L. Gosse; David M. Miller; D. Jean Burnell
Geminal acylation of derivatives of cyclohexanone with Br, Cl, F, and OCH3 in the α position, and of their corresponding dimethyl ketals, could not be accomplished to a significant extent following...