Synthesis of arrays using low molecular weight MPEG-assisted Mitsunobu reaction

A Close-up Look at the Chemical Space of Commercially Available Building Blocks for Medicinal Chemistry

The ability to efficiently synthesize desired compounds can be a limiting factor for chemical space exploration in drug discovery. This ability is conditioned not only by the existence of well-studied synthetic protocols but also by the availability of corresponding reagents, so-called building blocks (BBs). In this work, we present a detailed analysis of the chemical space of 400 000 purchasable BBs. The chemical space was defined by corresponding synthons─fragments contributed to the final molecules upon reaction. They allow an analysis of BB physicochemical properties and diversity, unbiased by the leaving and protective groups in actual reagents. The main classes of BBs were analyzed in terms of their availability, rule-of-two-defined quality, and diversity. Available BBs were eventually compared to a reference set of biologically relevant synthons derived from ChEMBL fragmentation, in order to illustrate how well they cover the actual medicinal chemistry needs. This was performed on a newly constructed universal generative topographic map of synthon chemical space that enables visualization of both libraries and analysis of their overlapped and library-specific regions.

Systematic Evaluation of 2-Arylazocarboxylates and 2-Arylazocarboxamides as Mitsunobu Reagents

2-Arylazocarboxylate and 2-arylazocarboxamide derivatives can serve as replacements of typical Mitsunobu reagents such as diethyl azodicarboxylate. A systematic investigation of the reactivity and physical properties of those azo compounds has revealed that they have an excellent ability as Mitsunobu reagents. These reagents show similar or superior reactivity as compared to the known azo reagents and are applicable to the broad scope of substrates. p K_a and steric effects of substrates have been investigated, and the limitation of the Mitsunobu reaction can be overcome by choosing suitable reagents from the library of 2-arylazocarboxylate and 2-aryl azocarboxamide derivatives. Convenient recovery of azo reagents is available by one-pot iron-catalyzed aerobic oxidation, for example. SC-DSC analysis of representative 2-arylazocarboxylate and 2-arylazocarboxamide derivatives has shown high thermal stability, indicating that these azo reagents possess lower chemical hazard compared with typical azo reagents.

Tetrazine Assists Reduction of Water by Phosphines: Application in the Mitsunobu Reaction

Reaction of 3,6-disubstituted-1,2,4,5-tetrazines with water and PEt₃ forms the corresponding 1,4-dihydrotetrazine and OPEt₃ . Thus PEt₃ , as a stoichiometric reductant, reduces water, and the resulting two reducing equivalents serve to doubly hydrogenate the tetrazine. A variety of possible initial interactions between electron-deficient tetrazine and electron-rich PR₃ , including a charge transfer complex, were evaluated by density functional calculations which revealed that the energy of all these make them spectroscopically undetectable at equilibrium, but one of these is nevertheless suggested as the intermediate in the observed redox reaction. The relationship of this to the Mitsunobu reaction, which absorbs the components of water evolved in the conversion of alcohol and carboxylic acid to ester, with desirable inversion at the alcohol carbon, is discussed. This enables a modified Mitsunobu reaction, with tetrazine replacing EtO₂ CN=NCO₂ Et (DEAD), which has the advantage that dihydrotetrazine can be recycled to tetrazine by oxidation with O₂ , something impossible with the hydrogenated DEAD. For this tetrazine version, a betaine-like intermediate is undetectable, but its protonated form is characterized, including by X-ray structure and NMR spectroscopy.

Advances and mechanistic insight on the catalytic Mitsunobu reaction using recyclable azo reagents

Ethyl 2-arylhydrazinecarboxylates can work as organocatalysts for Mitsunobu reactions because they provide ethyl 2-arylazocarboxylates through aerobic oxidation with a catalytic amount of iron phthalocyanine. First, ethyl 2-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)hydrazinecarboxylate has been identified as a potent catalyst, and the reactivity of the catalytic Mitsunobu reaction was improved through strict optimization of the reaction conditions. Investigation of the catalytic properties of ethyl 2-arylhydrazinecarboxylates and the corresponding azo forms led us to the discovery of a new catalyst, ethyl 2-(4-cyanophenyl)hydrazinecarboxylates, which expanded the scope of substrates. The mechanistic study of the Mitsunobu reaction with these new reagents strongly suggested the formation of betaine intermediates as in typical Mitsunobu reactions. The use of atmospheric oxygen as a sacrificial oxidative agent along with the iron catalyst is convenient and safe from the viewpoint of green chemistry. In addition, thermal analysis of the developed Mitsunobu reagents supports sufficient thermal stability compared with typical azo reagents such as diethyl azodicarboxylate (DEAD). The catalytic system realizes a substantial improvement of the Mitsunobu reaction and will be applicable to practical synthesis.

Intramolecular monomer-on-monomer (MoM) Mitsunobu cyclization for the synthesis of benzofused thiadiazepine-dioxides

The utilization of a monomer-on-monomer (MoM) intramolecular Mitsunobu cyclization reaction employing norbornenyl-tagged (Nb-tagged) reagents is reported for the synthesis of benzofused thiadiazepine-dioxides. Facile purification was achieved via ring-opening metathesis (ROM) polymerization initiated by one of three metathesis catalyst methods: (i) free metathesis catalyst, (ii) surface-initiated catalyst-armed silica, or (iii) surface-initiated catalyst-armed Co/C magnetic nanoparticles.