A New Access Route to Functionalized Cispentacins from Norbornene β-Amino Acids

Recent Progress in the Selective Fluorinations of Some Functionalized Cycloalkenes

Organofluorine compounds have had an increasing impact in synthetic organic chemistry and pharmaceutical research over the past two decades. Their syntheses and the development of novel synthetic approaches towards versatile fluorinated small molecules have received great interest. Our research team has designed various selective and stereocontrolled methods for the construction of fluorine-containing small molecular entities, involving the transformation of various functionalized cycloalkenes across their ring olefin bond. The synthetic methodologies developed to access various pharmacologically interesting fluorinated derivatives with multiple chiral centers might be valuable protocols for the preparation of other classes of organic compounds as well.

Application of Oxidative Ring Opening/Ring Closing by Reductive Amination Protocol for the Stereocontrolled Synthesis of Functionalized Azaheterocycles

The current Account gives an insight into the synthesis of some N-heterocyclic β-amino acid derivatives and various functionalized saturated azaheterocycles accessed from substituted cycloalkenes via ring C=C bond oxidative cleavage followed by ring closing across double reductive amination. The ring-cleavage protocol has been accomplished according to two common approaches: a) Os-catalyzed dihydroxylation/NaIO4 vicinal diol oxidation and b) ozonolysis. A comparative study on these methodologies has been investigated. Due to the everincreasing relevance of organofluorine chemistry in drug research as well as of the high biological potential of β-amino acid derivatives several illustrative examples to the access of various fluorine-containing piperidine or azepane β-amino acid derivatives are also presented in the current Account.

1 Introduction

2 Olefin-Bond Transformation by Oxidative Ring Cleavage

3 Synthesis of Saturated Azaheterocycles via Oxidative Ring-Opening/Ring-Closing Double Reductive Amination

3.1 Importance of Fluorine-Containing Azaheterocycles in Pharmaceutical Research

3.2 Synthesis of Azaheterocyclic Amino Acid Derivatives with a Piperidine or Azepane Framework through Oxidative Ring Opening/Reductive Amination

3.2.1 Synthesis of Piperidine β-Amino Esters

3.2.2 Synthesis of Azepane β-Amino Esters

3.2.3 Synthesis of Fluorine-Containing Piperidine γ-Amino Esters

3.3 Synthesis of Tetrahydroisoquinoline Derivatives through Oxidative Ring Opening/Reductive Amination Protocol

3.4 Synthesis of Functionalized Benzazepines through Reductive Amination

3.4.1 Synthesis of Benzo[c]azepines

3.4.2 Synthesis of Benzo[d]azepines

3.5 Synthesis of Various N-Heterocycles via Ozonolysis/Reductive Amination

3.5.1 Synthesis of Compounds with an Azepane Ring

3.5.2 Synthesis of Piperidine β-Amino Acids and Piperidine-Fused β-Lactams

3.5.3 Synthesis of γ-Lactams with a Piperidine Ring

3.5.4 Synthesis of other N-Heterocycles

4 Summary and Outlook

5 List of Abbreviations

Selective Transformation of Norbornadiene into Functionalized Azaheterocycles and β-Amino Esters with Stereo- and Regiocontrol

Novel functionalized azaheterocycles with multiple chiral centers have been accessed from readily available norbornene β-amino acids or β-lactams across a stereocontrolled synthetic route, based on ring-opening metathesis (ROM) of the staring unsaturated bicyclic amino esters, followed by selective cyclization through ring-closing metathesis (RCM). The RCM transformations have been studied under various experimental conditions to assess the scope of conversion, catalyst, yield, and substrate influence. The structure of the starting norbornene β-amino acids predetermined the structure of the new azaheterocycles, and the developed synthetic route took place with the conservation of the configuration of the chiral centers.

Organic Antifungal Drugs and Targets of Their Action

In recent decades, there has been a significant increase in the number of fungal diseases. This is due to a wide spectrum of action, immunosuppressants and other group drugs. In terms of frequency, rapid spread and globality, fungal infections are approaching acute respiratory infections. Antimycotics are medicinal substances endorsed with fungicidal or fungistatic properties. For the treatment of fungal diseases, several groups of compounds are used that differ in their origin (natural or synthetic), molecular targets and mechanism of action, antifungal effect (fungicidal or fungistatic), indications for use (local or systemic infections), and methods of administration (parenteral, oral, outdoor). Several efforts have been made by various medicinal chemists around the world for the development of antifungal drugs with high efficacy with the least toxicity and maximum selectivity in the area of antifungal chemotherapy. The pharmacokinetic properties of the new antimycotics are also important: the ability to penetrate biological barriers, be absorbed and distributed in tissues and organs, get accumulated in tissues affected by micromycetes, undergo drug metabolism in the intestinal microflora and human organs, and in the kinetics of excretion from the body. There are several ways to search for new effective antimycotics: - Obtaining new derivatives of the already used classes of antimycotics with improved activity properties. - Screening of new chemical classes of synthetic antimycotic compounds. - Screening of natural compounds. - Identification of new unique molecular targets in the fungal cell. - Development of new compositions and dosage forms with effective delivery vehicles. The methods of informatics, bioinformatics, genomics and proteomics were extensively investigated for the development of new antimycotics. These techniques were employed in finding and identification of new molecular proteins in a fungal cell; in the determination of the selectivity of drugprotein interactions, evaluation of drug-drug interactions and synergism of drugs; determination of the structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies; determination of the molecular design of the most active, selective and safer drugs for the humans, animals and plants. In medical applications, the methods of information analysis and pharmacogenomics allow taking into account the individual phenotype of the patient, the level of expression of the targets of antifungal drugs when choosing antifungal agents and their dosage. This review article incorporates some of the most significant studies covering the basic structures and approaches for the synthesis of antifungal drugs and the directions for their further development.

Diversity-Oriented Stereocontrolled Synthesis of Some Piperidine- and Azepane-Based Fluorine-Containing β-Amino Acid Derivatives

Structural diversity-oriented synthesis of some azaheterocyclic β-amino acid derivatives has been accomplished by selective functionalization of readily available cyclodienes. The stereocontrolled synthetic concept was based on the oxidative ring cleavage of unsaturated cyclic β-amino acids derived from cycloalkadiene, followed by ring closing with double reductive amination, which furnished some conformationally restricted β-amino acid derivatives with a piperidine or azepane core.

Amino Acid Metabolism and Transport Mechanisms as Potential Antifungal Targets

Discovering new drugs for treatment of invasive fungal infections is an enduring challenge. There are only three major classes of antifungal agents, and no new class has been introduced into clinical practice in more than a decade. However, recent advances in our understanding of the fungal life cycle, functional genomics, proteomics, and gene mapping have enabled the identification of new drug targets to treat these potentially deadly infections. In this paper, we examine amino acid transport mechanisms and metabolism as potential drug targets to treat invasive fungal infections, including pathogenic yeasts, such as species of Candida and Cryptococcus, as well as molds, such as Aspergillus fumigatus. We also explore the mechanisms by which amino acids may be exploited to identify novel drug targets and review potential hurdles to bringing this approach into clinical practice.

Highly functionalized cyclic β-amino acid moieties as promising scaffolds in peptide research and drug design

Peptide-based drug research has received high attention in the field of medicinal chemistry over the past decade. For drug design, to improve proteolytic stability, it is desirable to include unnatural building blocks, such as conformationally restricted β-amino acid moieties, into the peptide sequence. Accordingly, the synthesis and incorporation of such conformationally rigid systems into novel type of peptides has gained large interest. Our research group has designed highly efficient methods for the construction of potential antimicrobial peptides. Moreover, a number of synthetic approaches have been developed for the synthesis of various pharmacologically interesting cyclic β-amino acid derivatives as monomers with multiple stereogenic centers.

Chemoselective, Substrate-directed Fluorination of Functionalized Cyclopentane β-Amino Acids

This work describes a substrate-directed fluorination of some highly functionalized cyclopentane derivatives. The cyclic products incorporating CH₂ F or CHF₂ moieties in their structure have been synthesized from diexo- or diendo-norbornene β-amino acids following a stereocontrolled strategy. The synthetic study was based on an oxidative transformation of the ring carbon-carbon double bond of the norbornene β-amino acids, followed by transformation of the resulted "all cis" and "trans" diformyl intermediates by fluorination with "chemodifferentiation".

Stereo- and Regiocontrolled Syntheses of Exomethylenic Cyclohexane β-Amino Acid Derivatives

Cyclohexane analogues of the antifungal icofungipen [(1R,2S)-2-amino-4-methylenecyclopentanecarboxylic acid] were selectively synthesized from unsaturated bicyclic β-lactams by transformation of the ring olefinic bond through three different regio- and stereocontrolled hydroxylation techniques, followed by hydroxy group oxidation and oxo-methylene interconversion with a phosphorane. Starting from an enantiomerically pure bicyclic β-lactam obtained by enzymatic resolution of the racemic compound, an enantiodivergent procedure led to the preparation of both dextro- and levorotatory cyclohexane analogues of icofungipen.

Novel stereocontrolled syntheses of tashiromine and epitashiromine

A novel stereocontrolled approach has been developed for the syntheses of tashiromine and epitashiromine alkaloids from cyclooctene β-amino acids. The synthetic concept is based on the azetidinone opening of a bicyclic β-lactam, followed by oxidative ring opening through ring C-C double bond and reductive ring-closure reactions of the cis- or trans-cyclooctene β-amino acids.

N,N-Dimethylaminobenzoates enable highly enantioselective Sharpless dihydroxylations of 1,1-disubstituted alkenes

A design scenario aimed at exploring beneficial catalyst-substrate π-π stacking electronic interactions in the classical Sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylations (SAD) leads to the identification of highly polarizable allylic N,N-dimethylaminobenzoate as a remarkably efficient auxiliary for inducing high levels of enantioselectivities (up to 99% ee) in the traditionally challenging substrate class of 1,1-disubstituted aliphatic alkenes.