Diastereospecific fluorination of substituted azepanes

Aza-Heterocyclic Building Blocks with In-Ring CF2 -Fragment

Modern organic chemistry is a titan supporting and reinforcing pharmaceutical, agricultural, food and material science products. Over the past decades, the organic compounds market has been evolving to meet all the research demands. In this regard, medicinal chemistry is especially dependent on available chemical space as subtle tuning of the molecule structure is required to create a drug with relevant physicochemical properties and a remarkable activity profile. The recent rapid evolution of synthetic methodology to deploy fluorine has brought fluorinated compounds to the spotlight of MedChem community. And now unique properties of fluorine still keep fascinating more and more as its justified installation into a molecular framework has a beneficial impact on membrane permeability, lipophilicity, metabolic stability, pharmacokinetic properties, conformation, pKa , etc. The backward influence of medicinal chemistry on organic synthesis has also changed the landscape of the latter towards new fluorinated topologies as well. Such complex relationships create a flexible and ever-changing ecosystem. Given that MedChem investigations strongly lean on the ability to reach suitable building blocks and the existence of reliable synthetic methods in this review we collected advances in the chemistry of respectful, but still enigmatic gem-difluorinated aza-heterocyclic building blocks.

Synthesis of trifluoromethyl N,N-aminals from nitrogen containing heterocycles by using a plasma flow microreactor

Trifluoromethyl N,N-aminals are important precursors allowing access to fluorinated building blocks. In this work, the direct synthesis of trifluoromethyl N,N-aminals from nitrogen containing heterocycles is reported using argon plasma in a continuous flow microreactor without any additives or metal catalysts. Their transformation to N-trifluoroethyl amines is also reported.

The Effect of Vicinal Difluorination on the Conformation and Potency of Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors

Histone deacetylase enzymes (HDACs) are potential targets for the treatment of cancer and other diseases, but it is challenging to design isoform-selective agents. In this work, we created new analogs of two established but non-selective HDAC inhibitors. We decorated the central linker chains of the molecules with specifically positioned fluorine atoms in order to control the molecular conformations. The fluorinated analogs were screened against a panel of 11 HDAC isoforms, and minor differences in isoform selectivity patterns were observed.

Stereocontrolled Synthesis of Functionalized Azaheterocycles from Carbocycles through Oxidative Ring Opening/Reductive Ring Closing Protocols

Fluorine-containing organic scaffolds are of significant interest in medicinal chemistry. The incorporation of fluorine into biomolecules can lead to remarkable changes in their physical, chemical, and biological properties. There are already many drugs on the market, which contain at least one fluorine atom. Saturated functionalized azaheterocycles as bioactive substances have gained increasing attention in pharmaceutical chemistry. Due to the high biorelevance of organofluorine molecules and the importance of N-heterocyclic compounds, selective stereocontrolled procedures to the access of new fluorine-containing saturated N-heterocycles are considered to be a hot research topic. This account summarizes the synthesis of functionalized and fluorine-containing saturated azaheterocycles starting from functionalized cycloalkenes and based on oxidative ring cleavage of diol intermediates followed by ring expansion with reductive amination.

Enantioselective synthesis of (+)-brevipolide H

The enantioselective synthesis of natural brevipolide H is reported for the first time. By way of Sharpless epoxidation of penta-1,4-dien-3-ol, both enantiomerically pure epoxides were converted to the corresponding olefins for cross metathesis. Subsequent transformations, including epoxide ring opening, esterifications, cyclopropanation, oxidation and ring-closing metathesis, provided the target molecule. This synthesis successfully addresses previous shortcomings in preparing brevipolides.

Imaginative Order from Reasonable Chaos: Conformation-Driven Activity and Reactivity in Exploring Protein–Ligand Interactions

Sir Derek Barton’s seminal work on steroid conformational analysis opened up a new era of enquiry into how the preferred conformation of any molecule could have profound effects on its physical–chemical properties and activities. Conformation-based effects on molecular activity and reactivity continue to manifest, with one key area of investigation currently focussed on conformational entropy in driving protein–ligand interactions. Carrying on from Barton’s initial insight on natural product conformational properties, new questions now address how conformational flexibility within a bioactive natural product structural framework (reasonable chaos), can be directed to confer dynamically new protein–ligand interactions beyond the basic lock–key model (imaginative order). Here we summarise our work on exploring conformational diversity from fluorinated natural product fragments, and how this approach of conformation-coupled diversity-oriented synthesis can be used to iteratively derive ligands with enhanced specificity against highly homologous protein domains. Our results demonstrate that the conformation entropic states of highly conserved protein domains differ significantly, and this conformational diversity, beyond primary sequence analysis, can be duly captured and exploited by natural-product derived ligands with complementary conformational dynamics for enhancing recognition specificity in drug lead discovery.

Divergent response of homologous ATP sites to stereospecific ligand fluorination for selectivity enhancement

Acquiring a divergent response from homologous protein domains is essential for selective ligand-protein interactions. Stereospecific fluorination of (-)-balanol, an ATP mimic, uncovers a new source of selectivity from integrated chemical and conformational perturbation that differentiates homologous sites by the level of congruency in their response to local and remote fluorine effects.

Crystal structure of (4R,5S,6R)-6-azido-5-benz-yloxy-3,3,4-tri-fluoro-azepan-1-ium 2,2,2-tri-fluoro-acetate from synchrotron data

The structure of the title compound, C15H16F6N4O3, was determined using synchrotron radiation on an extremely small crystal (0.015 × 0.01 × 0.01 mm). Although the diffraction was weak, leading to high residuals and a poor data-to-parameter ratio, the data allowed ready solution and refinement to reveal the entire structure. The solid-state structure is in accordance with the absolute configuration assigned based on that of the known starting material. The compound comprises a highly substituted seven-membered N-heterocyclic cation and a tri-fluoro-methane-sulfonate counter-anion. The title compound crystallizes with two independent cations (A and B) and anions (C and D) in the asymmetric unit. Two geminal F atoms, a single F atom, a benzyl ether and an azide group are substituted on consecutive C atoms between the NH2 and CH2 units of the azepan-1-ium ring system. The seven-membered rings adopt different conformations with the principal differences occurring in the CF2CHFCH2 segments of the ring systems. The geminal F atoms on the quaternary C atom exhibit essentially identical bond angles [109 (2) and 106 (2)°] in the two independent mol-ecules. The two mol-ecules associate as a dimeric unit via two C-H⋯F inter-actions. An extensive series of N-H⋯O, N-H⋯F, C-H⋯O, C-H⋯N, C-H⋯F and C-H⋯π contacts generate a three-dimensional network with cations and anions linked into ABCD repeat columns along a.

One-Pot Synthesis of N-Substituted β-Amino Alcohols from Aldehydes and Isocyanides

A practical two-stage one-pot synthesis of N-substituted β-amino alcohols using aldehydes and isocyanides as starting materials has been developed. This method features mild reaction conditions, broad scope, and general tolerance of functional groups. Based on a less common central carbon-carbon bond disconnection, this protocol complements traditional approaches that involve amines and various carbon electrophiles (epoxides, α-halo ketones, β-halohydrins). Medicinally relevant products can be prepared in a concise and efficient way from simple building blocks, as demonstrated in the synthesis of the antiasthma drug salbutamol. Upgrading the synthesis to an enantioselective variant is also feasible.

Cooperative Conformational Regulation in N-Heterocyclic Fluorohydrins

Seven-membered N-heterocycles are flexible ring structures, and their conformational control is important to their bioactivity. Our prior work shows that stereoselective monofluorination, if installed diastereoselectively, can bias a seven-membered, substituted azepane ring to one major conformation. However, multiple fluorination may not provide as much conformational bias due to conflicting effects. Here we show in our model azepane system that fluorohydrins can confer strong conformational bias if the relative configuration of the fluorine and hydroxy substitutent is appropriate to enable cooperative conformational control.

Stereoselectively fluorinated N-heterocycles: a brief survey

The stereoselective incorporation of fluorine atoms into N-heterocycles can lead to dramatic changes in the molecules’ physical and chemical properties. These changes can be rationally exploited for the benefit of diverse fields such as medicinal chemistry and organocatalysis. This brief review will examine some of the effects that fluorine substitution can have in N-heterocycles, including changes to the molecules’ stability, their conformational behaviour, their hydrogen bonding ability, and their basicity. Finally, some methods for the synthesis of stereoselectively fluorinated N-heterocycles will also be reviewed.