Highly enantioselective synthesis of chiral imides and derived products via chiral base desymmetrisation

The enantioselective deprotonation of several ring-fused imides with a chiral base, followed by electrophilic quenching, gives a range of chiral products in good yield and in ≥91% ee. The absolute stereochemistry of two of the products was determined by X-ray crystallography. A number of the imide products were subjected to further, highly regioselective, transformations, including enolate substitution, reduction and thionation.