Eur. J. Org. Chem. 2011, 9, 1782-1785
DOI: 10.1002/ejoc.201001362
Bezdudny A. V.; Alekseenko A. N.; Mykhailiuk P. K.; Manoilenko O. V.; Shishkin O. V.; Pustovit Y. M.
Pyroglutamic acid smoothly reacts with sulfur tetrafluoride at room temperature to afford enantiomerically pure (5S)-5-(trifluoromethyl)pyrrolidin-2-one (92 % yield, >99 % ee). Representative one-step transformations of 1 provided both γ-(S)-trifluoromethyl GABA and (2S)-2-(trifluoromethyl)pyrrolidine on a multigram scale.