Todd K. Hyster

Rhodium-Catalyzed Oxidative Cycloaddition of Benzamides and Alkynes via C−H/N−H Activation

The oxidative cycloaddition of benzamides and alkynes has been developed. The reaction utilizes Rh(III) catalysts in the presence of Cu(II) oxidants, and is proposed to proceed by N-H metalation of the amide followed by ortho C-H activation. The resultant rhodacycle undergoes alkyne insertion to form isoquinolones in good yield. The reaction is tolerant of extensive substitution on the amide, alkyne, and arene, including halides, silyl ethers, and unprotected aldehydes as substituents. Unsymmetrical alkynes proceed with excellent regioselectivity, and heteroaryl carboxamides are tolerated leading to intriguing scaffolds for medicinal chemistry. A series of competition experiments shed further light on the mechanism of the transformation and reasons for selectivity.

Biotinylated Rh(III) complexes in engineered streptavidin for accelerated asymmetric C-H activation.

Forced Asymmetry in Cp The cyclopentadienyl (Cp) ligand—a pentagon of carbons—is a common feature in transition metal catalysts, but chiral variants of the structure have rarely been applied to asymmetric reactions. Two studies now demonstrate distinct approaches to rendering a Cp-derived rhodium catalyst enantioselective in a tandem carbon-hydrogen activation-ring closure reaction that couples olefins with benzamides (see the Perspective by Wang and Glorius). Hyster et al. (p. 500) tethered a biotin derivative to the Cp ligand to enable docking in a chiral streptavidin protein cavity, which in turn was engineered to further optimize catalytic performance. Ye and Cramer (p. 504) appended chiral substituents on the Cp framework to bias the rest of the coordination environment around the metal center. Modifying an achiral ligand to dock in a protein renders catalysis by its rhodium complex asymmetric. Enzymes provide an exquisitely tailored chiral environment to foster high catalytic activities and selectivities, but their native structures are optimized for very specific biochemical transformations. Designing a protein to accommodate a non-native transition metal complex can broaden the scope of enzymatic transformations while raising the activity and selectivity of small-molecule catalysis. Here, we report the creation of a bifunctional artificial metalloenzyme in which a glutamic acid or aspartic acid residue engineered into streptavidin acts in concert with a docked biotinylated rhodium(III) complex to enable catalytic asymmetric carbon-hydrogen (C–H) activation. The coupling of benzamides and alkenes to access dihydroisoquinolones proceeds with up to nearly a 100-fold rate acceleration compared with the activity of the isolated rhodium complex and enantiomeric ratios as high as 93:7.

A coupling of benzamides and donor/acceptor diazo compounds to form γ-lactams via Rh(III)-catalyzed C-H activation.

The coupling of O-pivaloyl benzhydroxamic acids with donor/acceptor diazo compounds provides isoindolones in high yield. The reaction tolerates a broad range of benzhydroxamic acids and diazo compounds, including substituted 2,2,2-trifluorodiazoethanes. Mechanistic experiments suggested that C-H activation is turnover-limiting and irreversible and that insertion of the diazo compound favors electron-deficient substrates.

An improved catalyst architecture for rhodium(III) catalyzed C–H activation and its application to pyridone synthesis

We have developed a method for preparing pyridones from the coupling reaction of acrylamides and alkynes with either stoichometric Cu(OAc)2 or catalytic Cu(OAc)2 and air as oxidants. In the course of these studies, it was found that a larger ligand, 1,3-di-tert-butylcyclopentadienyl (termed Cpt) results in higher degrees of regioselectivity in the alkyne insertion event. The transformation tolerates a broad variety of alkynes and acrylamides. Furthermore, Cpt and Cp* demonstrate similar catalytic activity. This similarity allows for mechanistic studies to be undertaken which suggest a difference in mechanism between this reaction and the previously studied benzamide system.

Rhodium(III)-catalyzed oxidative carbonylation of benzamides with carbon monoxide

An efficient strategy for the oxidative carbonylation of aromatic amides via C-H/N-H activation to form phthalimides using an Rh(III) catalyst has been developed. The reaction shows a preference for C-H bonds of electron-rich aromatic amides and tolerates a variety of functional groups.

Rhodium(III)-Catalyzed Intramolecular Hydroarylation, Amidoarylation, and Heck-type Reaction: Three Distinct Pathways Determined by an Amide Directing Group†

Three different Rh(III)-catalyzed reaction pathways of a wide variety of tethered alkenes can be accessed through the change of the amide directing group. This provides an efficient route to a myriad of complex polycyclic products, many containing newly-formed all-carbon quaternary centers. Amidoarylations can highly diastereoselectively deliver products with up to three contiguous stereocenters.

Enantioselective Enzyme-Catalyzed Aziridination Enabled by Active- Site Evolution of a Cytochrome P450

One of the greatest challenges in protein design is creating new enzymes, something evolution does all the time, starting from existing ones. Borrowing from nature’s evolutionary strategy, we have engineered a bacterial cytochrome P450 to catalyze highly enantioselective intermolecular aziridination, a synthetically useful reaction that has no natural biological counterpart. The new enzyme is fully genetically encoded, functions in vitro or in whole cells, and can be optimized rapidly to exhibit high enantioselectivity (up to 99% ee) and productivity (up to 1,000 catalytic turnovers) for intermolecular aziridination, demonstrated here with tosyl azide and substituted styrenes. This new aziridination activity highlights the remarkable ability of a natural enzyme to adapt and take on new functions. Once discovered in an evolvable enzyme, this non-natural activity was improved and its selectivity tuned through an evolutionary process of accumulating beneficial mutations.

Enzyme-controlled nitrogen-atom transfer enables regiodivergent C-H amination.

We recently demonstrated that variants of cytochrome P450BM3 (CYP102A1) catalyze the insertion of nitrogen species into benzylic C–H bonds to form new C–N bonds. An outstanding challenge in the field of C–H amination is catalyst-controlled regioselectivity. Here, we report two engineered variants of P450BM3 that provide divergent regioselectivity for C–H amination—one favoring amination of benzylic C–H bonds and the other favoring homo-benzylic C–H bonds. The two variants provide nearly identical kinetic isotope effect values (2.8–3.0), suggesting that C–H abstraction is rate-limiting. The 2.66-Å crystal structure of the most active enzyme suggests that the engineered active site can preorganize the substrate for reactivity. We hypothesize that the enzyme controls regioselectivity through localization of a single C–H bond close to the iron nitrenoid.

Ligand design for Rh(III)-catalyzed C–H activation: an unsymmetrical cyclopentadienyl group enables a regioselective synthesis of dihydroisoquinolones

We report the regioselective synthesis of dihydroisoquinolones from aliphatic alkenes and O-pivaloyl benzhydroxamic acids mediated by a Rh(III) precatalyst bearing sterically bulky substituents. While the prototypical Cp* ligand provides product with low selectivity, sterically bulky Cpt affords product with excellent regioselectivity for a range of benzhydroxamic acids and alkenes. Crystallographic evidence offers insight as to the source of the increased regioselectivity.

Enantioselective imidation of sulfides via enzyme-catalyzed intermolecular nitrogen-atom transfer.

Engineering enzymes with novel reaction modes promises to expand the applications of biocatalysis in chemical synthesis and will enhance our understanding of how enzymes acquire new functions. The insertion of nitrogen-containing functional groups into unactivated C–H bonds is not catalyzed by known enzymes but was recently demonstrated using engineered variants of cytochrome P450BM3 (CYP102A1) from Bacillus megaterium. Here, we extend this novel P450-catalyzed reaction to include intermolecular insertion of nitrogen into thioethers to form sulfimides. An examination of the reactivity of different P450BM3 variants toward a range of substrates demonstrates that electronic properties of the substrates are important in this novel enzyme-catalyzed reaction. Moreover, amino acid substitutions have a large effect on the rate and stereoselectivity of sulfimidation, demonstrating that the protein plays a key role in determining reactivity and selectivity. These results provide a stepping stone for engineering more complex nitrogen-atom-transfer reactions in P450 enzymes and developing a more comprehensive biocatalytic repertoire.