1,5-dipolar electrocyclization of acyl-substituted 'thiocarbonyl-ylides' to 1,3-oxathioles

The reaction of alpha-diazoketones 15a,b with 4,4-disubstituted 1,3-thiazole-5(4H)-thiones 6 (Scheme 3), adamantanethione (17), 2,2,4,4-tetramethyl-3-thioxocyclobutanone (19; Scheme 4), and thiobenzophenone (22; Scheme 5), respectively, at 50-90 degrees gave the corresponding 1,3-oxathiole derivatives as the sole products in high yields. This reaction opens a convenient access to this type of five-membered heterocycles. The structures of three of the products, namely 16c, 16f, and 20b, were established by X-ray crystallography. The key-step of the proposed reaction mechanism is a 1,5-dipolar electrocyclization of an acyl-substituted 'thiocarbonyl-ylide' (rf. Scheme 6). The analogous reaction of 15a,b with 9H-xanthen-9-thione (24a) and 9H-thioxanthen-9-thione (24b) yielded alpha,beta-unsaturated ketones of type 25 (Scheme 5). The structures of 25a and 25c were also established by X-ray crystallography. The formation of 25 proceeds via a 1,3-dipolar electrocyclization to a thiirane intermediate (Scheme 6) and desulfurization. From the reaction of 15a with 24b in THF at 50 degrees, the intermediate 26 (Scheme 5) was isolated. In the crude mixtures of the reactions of 15a with 17 and 19, a minor product containing a CHO group was observed by IR and NMR spectroscopy. In the case of 19, this side product could be isolated and was characterized by X-ray crystallography to be 21 (Scheme 4). It was shown that 21 is formed - in relatively low yield - from 20a. Formally, the transformation is an oxidative cleavage of the C=C bond, but the reaction mechanism is still not known.