Synthesis of a Benzolactone Collection using Click Chemistry

Exploring Possible Surrogates for Kobayashi's Aryne Precursors

A class of aryne precursors, that is, 2-(trimethylsilyl)aryl 4-chlorobenzenesulfonates, has been developed through well-established synthetic routes, which allow the formation of arynes under relatively mild conditions. All the aryne precursors were obtained from phenols and 4-chlorobenzenesulfonyl chloride, an inexpensive and easy-to-handle reagent with relatively low toxicity, and subjected to nucleophilic addition reactions, providing addition products in yields of 24 to 92%, and to cycloaddition reactions, affording cycloadducts in yields up to 80%. This work provides interesting insights into the mechanisms of aryne generation. In addition, 2-(trimethylsilyl)phenyl 4-chlorobenzenesulfonate was successfully employed in the total synthesis of (±)-aporphine.

Twelve-membered macrolactones: privileged scaffolds for the development of new therapeutics

Natural products commonly produced as secondary metabolites of various plants and micro-organisms represent a diverse chemical space of compounds. The diversity of natural products makes them an attractive target for interrogation by both chemists and biologists alike. Indeed, the study of 12-membered macrolactones has already led to the discovery of lead drug compounds and new biological targets, which has motivated the development of diverted total synthetic routes to libraries of analogs. This review explores the discovery, biological characterization, and synthesis of several 12-membered macrolactones, exploiting examples that underscore their importance in the drug discovery field. It is our hope that this review will motivate further interest in this class of natural products, a group of molecules that we think merit the classification of 'privileged scaffolds' within the medicinal chemistry community, to further investigate and develop novel compounds with promising bioactivity.

Azidation in the Difunctionalization of Olefins

Organic azides are key motifs in compounds of relevance to chemical biology, medicinal chemistry and materials science. In addition, they also serve as useful building blocks due to their remarkable reactivity. Therefore, the development of efficient protocols to synthesize these compounds is of great significance. This paper reviews the major applications and development of azidation in difunctionalization of olefins using azide reagents.

A copper complex covalently grafted on carbon nanotubes and reduced graphene oxide promotes oxygen reduction reaction activity and catalyst stability

Covalent immobilization of a copper complex on CNTs or rGO remarkably improves the catalyst ORR activity and stability compared with that of the physisorbed counterparts, and proximal dinuclear Cu sites on flat rGO effectively promote the oxygen 4e⁻ reduction process.

Design and synthesis of analogues of natural products

In this article strategies for the design and synthesis of natural product analogues are summarized and illustrated with some selected examples.

Concise and diversity-oriented synthesis of ligand arm-functionalized azoamides

Azoamides, previously established as bioactive intracellular GSH-depleting agents, were decorated with a terminal alkyne moiety to 4 and then were transformed, by copper(I)-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC), into different ligand-arm functionalized azoamides 6. Azides 5 having ligand-arms amenable for binding to platinum(II) were selected for this study. Because, for the fragile azoamides 4, the typically employed reaction conditions for CuAAC failed, several alternative solvents and copper catalysts were tested. Excellent results were obtained with copper(II) sulfate pentahydrate/metallic copper and especially with heterogeneous catalysts, such as copper-in-charcoal, cupric oxide, and cuprous oxide. The heterogeneous catalysts were employed to obtain the desired products in almost quantitative yields by a simple three-step "stir-filter-evaporate" protocol with no or negligible contamination with copper impurities. This is of particular importance because compounds 6 have been designed for coordination.

Click chemistry reactions in medicinal chemistry: applications of the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition between azides and alkynes

In recent years, there has been an ever-increasing need for rapid reactions that meet the three main criteria of an ideal synthesis: efficiency, versatility, and selectivity. Such reactions would allow medicinal chemistry to keep pace with the multitude of information derived from modern biological screening techniques. The present review describes one of these reactions, the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition ("click-reaction") between azides and alkynes catalyzed by copper (I) salts. The simplicity of this reaction and the ease of purification of the resulting products have opened new opportunities in generating vast arrays of compounds with biological potential. The present review will outline the accomplishments of this strategy achieved so far and outline some of medicinal chemistry applications in which click-chemistry might be relevant in the future.