Studies of diastereoselectivity in Diels-Alder reactions of (S)S-4a,5,8,8a-tetrahydro-5,8-methane-2-(p-tolylsulfinyl)-1,4-naphthoquinones with cyclopentadiene

The title compounds 6 and 7 have proved to be adequate rigid models to evaluate the ability of the sulfinyl group to control the diastereoselectivity of the [4 + 2] cycloadditions of cyclopentadiene on the ene-dione moiety. The results of thermal and Lewis acid-catalyzed reactions allowed us to establish that both reactivity and endo / exo selectivity were modulated by the presence of the sulfinyl group, the endo-anti-endo or the exo-anti-endo bisadducts being obtained as major products depending on experimental conditions. The role of the association between the SOTol group and several Lewis acids (BF3 . OEt(2), Eu(fod)(3), ZnBr2), which shifted the conformational equilibrium around the C-S bond, was used to explain the stereochemical course of the cycloadditions mainly controlled by steric factors. The synthesis of the exo-anti-endo bisadduct 5 was described for the first time.