Development of Helical Aromatic Amide Foldamers with a Diphenylacetylene Backbone

Recent advances of optically active helical polymers as adsorbents and chiral stationary phases for chiral resolution

Chiral resolution is very important and still a big challenge due to different biological activity and same physicochemical property of one pair (R)- and (S)-isomer. There is no doubt that chiral selectors are essentially needed for chiral resolution, which can stereoselectively interact with a pair of isomers. To date, a large amount of optically active helical polymers as chiral selectors have been synthesized via two strategies. First, the target helical polymers are derived from natural polysaccharide such as cellulose and amylose. Second, they can be synthesized by polymerization of chiral monomers. Alternatively, an achiral polymer is prepared first followed by static or dynamic chiral induction. Furthermore, a part of them is harnessed as chiral stationary phases for chromatographic chiral separation and as chiral adsorbents for enantioselective adsorption/crystallization, resulting in good enantioseparation efficiency. In summary, the present review will focus on recent progress of the polymers with optical activity for chiral resolution, especially the literature published in the past 10 years. In addition, development prospects and future challenges of optically active helical polymers will be discussed in detail.

Tandem Reduction, Ammonolysis, Condensation, and Deamination Reaction for Synthesis of Benzothiadiazines and 1-(Phenylsulfonyl)-1H-benzimidazoles

A novel route for a SnCl₂-promoted tandem reduction, ammonolysis, condensation, and deamination reaction which uses nitrile and 2-nitro-N-phenylbenzenesulfonamide/N-(2-nitrophenyl)benzenesulfonamide to synthesize derivatives of benzothiadiazine/1-(phenylsulfonyl)-1H-benzimidazole has been developed. The method features convenient operation and good functional group tolerance. In addition, it employs unsensitive and inexpensive SnCl₂/i-PrOH as the reaction reagent and provides a direct approach for the synthesis of pharmaceutically important targets.

Synthesis, Molecular Docking Analysis, and Biological Evaluations of Saccharide-Modified Sulfonamides as Carbonic Anhydrase IX Inhibitors

Based on the strategy of the “tail approach”, 15 novel saccharide-modified sulfonamides were designed and synthesised. The novel compounds were evaluated as inhibitors of three human carbonic anhydrase (CA) isoforms, namely cytoplasmic CA II, transmembrane CA IX, and XII. Most of these compounds showed good activity against CAs and high topological polar surface area (TPSA) values, which had a positive effect on the selective inhibition of transmembrane isoforms CA IX and XII. In the in vitro activity studies, compounds 16a, 16b, and 16e reduced the viability of HT-29 and MDA-MB-231 cells with a high expression of CA IX under hypoxia. The inhibitory activity of compound 16e on the human osteosarcoma cell line MG-63 with a high expression of CA IX and XII was better than that of AZM. Moreover, high concentrations of compounds 16a and 16b reversed the acidification of the tumour microenvironment. In addition, compound 16a had a certain inhibitory effect on the migration of MDA-MB-231 cells. All the above results indicate that the saccharide-modified sulfonamide has further research value for the development of CA IX inhibitors.

Preparation and Chiral Applications of Optically Active Polyamides

Chirality is omnipresent in nature and plays vital roles in living organism, and has become a hot research topic across multidisciplinary fields including chemistry, biology, physics, and material science. Meanwhile, polyamides constitute an important class of polymers and have received significant attention owing to their outstanding properties and wide-ranging applications in many areas. Judiciously introducing chirality into polyamides will undoubtedly obtain attractive chiral polymers, namely, optically active polyamides. This review describes the preparation methods of chiral polyamides, including solution polycondensation, interfacial polycondensation, ring-open polymerization, and others; the newly emerging categories of chiral polyamides, i.e., helical polyamides, chiral polyamide-imides, are also presented. The applications of optically active polyamides in chiral research fields including asymmetric catalysis, membrane separation, and enantioselective crystallization are also summarized. In addition, current challenges in chiral polyamides are further presented and future perspectives in the field are proposed.

N-Alkylated Aromatic Poly- and Oligoamides

N-alkylated aromatic poly- and oligoamides are a particular class of abiotic foldamers that is deprived of the capability of forming intramolecular hydrogen-bonding networks to stabilize their tri-dimensional structure. The alkylation of the backbone amide nitrogen atoms greatly increases the chemical diversity accessible for aromatic poly- and oligoamides. However, the nature and the conformational preferences of the N,N-disubstituted amides profoundly modify the folding properties of these aromatic poly- and oligoamides. In this Review, representative members of this class of aromatic poly- and oligoamides will be highlighted, among them N-alkylated phenylene terephthalamides, benzanilides, pyridylamides, and aminomethyl benzamide oligomers. The principal synthetic pathways to the main classes of N-alkylated aromatic polyamides with narrow to broad molecular-weight distribution, or oligoamides with specific sequences, will be detailed and their foldameric properties will be discussed. The Review will end by describing the few applications reported to date and future prospects for the field.

Potential Foldamers Based on an ortho-Terphenyl Amino Acid

We describe the synthesis and characterization of a new class of oligomers built from a terphenyl-based amino acid. These oligomeric amides are of interest because the adoption of specific conformations could potentially be driven by the coordinated formation of inter-residue hydrogen bonds and aromatic interactions. Although high-resolution structural data have proven inaccessible, circular dichroism and nuclear magnetic resonance studies suggest that the new oligomers fold concomitantly with discrete self-association in chloroform.

Resistance to Unwanted Photo-Oxidation of Multi-Acene Molecules

Although long acenes remain a key class of π-conjugated molecules for numerous applications, photoinduced oxidation upon exposure of the acene to light, often through sensitization of ¹O₂, is an important reaction requiring mitigation for most applications. In response to this ongoing challenge, this paper presents a series of four new diarylethynyl-substituted long acenes-three tetracenes and one anthradithiophene-in which the arylene pendants are either benzene, naphthalene, or anthracene. UV/vis and fluorescence spectroscopy reveals that the anthracene-substituted derivatives fluoresce poorly (Φ < 0.01). Although all four long acenes react with ¹O₂ at expected rates when an external photosensitizer is included and show the expected changes in fluorescence to accompany these reactions, the anthracene-substituted derivatives resist direct photoinduced oxidation. Through a combination of mechanistic experiments, we conclude that rapid nonradiative decay of the anthracene-substituted derivatives, perhaps because of inter-arene torsions that emerge in theoretical geometry optimizations, makes these compounds poor photosensitizers for ¹O₂ or other reactive oxygen species. This discovery opens new design possibilities for extended acene structures with improved photochemical stability.

Synthesis of an optically active polymer containing a planar phthalimide backbone by asymmetric polymerization

Herein we present the precise design and synthesis of a novel polymer backbone that induces a helical structure through asymmetric polymerization reactions of a phthalimide-based monomer catalyzed by a planar-chiral cyclopentadienyl–ruthenium complex.