Chiral recognition by CD-sensitive dimeric zinc porphyrin host. 2. Structural studies of host-guest complexes with chiral alcohol and monoamine conjugates

Circular Dichroism Sensing: Strategies and Applications

The analysis of the absolute configuration, enantiomeric composition, and concentration of chiral compounds are frequently encountered tasks across the chemical and health sciences. Chiroptical sensing methods can streamline this work and allow high-throughput screening with remarkable reduction of operational time and cost. During the last few years, significant methodological advances with innovative chirality sensing systems, the use of computer-generated calibration curves, machine learning assistance, and chemometric data processing, to name a few, have emerged and are now matched with commercially available multi-well plate CD readers. These developments have reframed the chirality sensing space and provide new opportunities that are of interest to a large group of chemists. This review will discuss chirality sensing strategies and applications with representative small-molecule CD sensors. Emphasis will be given to important milestones and recent advances that accelerate chiral compound analysis by outperforming traditional methods, conquer new directions, and pioneering efforts that lie at the forefront of chiroptical high-throughput screening developments. The goal is to provide the reader with a thorough understanding of the current state and a perspective of future directions of this rapidly emerging field.

A Self-Assembled Cage for Wide-Scope Chiral Recognition in Water

Herein, we report the self-assembly of an anionic homochiral octahedral cage by condensing six Ga³⁺ cations and four trisacylhydrazone ligands. The robust nature of the hydrazone bond renders the cage stable in water, where it can take advantage of the hydrophobic effect for host-guest recognition. In addition to the internal binding site, namely, the inner cavity, the octahedral cage possesses four "windows", each of which represents an external binding site allowing peripheral complexation. These internal and external binding sites endow the cage with the capability to bind a broad range of guests whose sizes could either be smaller than or exceed the volume of the cage's inner cavity. Upon accommodation of a chiral guest, one of the two cage enantiomers becomes more favored than the other, producing circular-dichroism (CD) signals. The CD signal intensity of the cage is observed to be proportional to the ee value of the chiral guest, allowing a quantitative determination of the latter.

Induction, control, and rationalization of supramolecular chirogenesis using metalloporphyrin tweezers: a structure-function correlation

Supramolecular chirogenesis is one of the most rudimentary topics in the interdisciplinary sciences and essentially deals with various natural processes and innovative modern technologies. A comprehensive and rigorous understanding of such phenomenon is necessary to have a clear insight into the fundamental mechanisms and the various controlling factors, which would eventually lead to a range of practical applications of chiral supramolecular science. Metalloporphyrin tweezers have been extensively employed for such chirogenic processes due to their exciting physicochemical and tunable spectral properties, large stabilities, easily available synthetic protocols, and excellent abilities to form molecular assemblies. During the last few decades, various metalloporphyrin tweezers have been developed and considerably utilized by several research groups for assigning the absolute configuration to a variety of chiral diamines, conjugates of primary and secondary amines, amino alcohols, secondary alcohols, α-chiral carboxylic acids, etc. Our group has been at the forefront in trying to establish the structure-property correlation in this important area of interdisciplinary research. A brief account of our systematic investigation for understanding the underpinning mechanism of chirality induction and control at the molecular level over the last few years is presented in this Perspective article. The comprehensive understanding of such mechanistic details will be helpful in understanding various natural processes and designing modern technologies for various chirogenic functions in the fields of molecular sensors, nanotechnology, and supramolecular chemistry.

The enduring legacy of Koji Nakanishi's research on bioorganic chemistry and natural products. Part 1: Isolation, structure determination and mode of action

In this brief review on Koji Nakanishi's remarkable career in natural products chemistry, we have highlighted a number of his accomplishments that illustrate the broad diversity of his interests. These include the isolation, structure determination, and biological mechanism of action of many natural products including the triterpenoid pristimerin; the diterpenoid ginkgolides; insect and crustacean molting hormones; phytoalexins; the toxic red tide principle brevetoxin; the vanadium tunicate pigments; philanthotoxin from killer wasps; antisickling agents; mitomycin DNA adducts; insect antifeedants; a mitotic hormone, the small molecule fish attractants from the sea anemone; new isolation and purification technologies; molecular chemistry of vision; age-related macular degeneration; and the development of the exciton circular dichroism (CD) chirality method for microscale determination of absolute configuration of natural products and chirality of other chiral molecules and supramolecular assembly.

Stereochemical analysis of chiral amines, diamines, and amino alcohols: Practical chiroptical sensing based on dynamic covalent chemistry

Practical chiroptical sensing with a small group of commercially available aromatic aldehydes is demonstrated. Schiff base formation between the electron-deficient 2,4-dinitrobenzaldehyde probe and either primary amines, diamines, or amino alcohols proceeds smoothly in chloroform at room temperature and is completed in the presence of molecular sieves within 2.5 hours. The substrate binding coincides with a distinct circular dichroism signal induction at approximately 330 nm, which can be correlated to the absolute configuration and enantiomeric composition of the analyte. The usefulness of this sensing method is highlighted with the successful sensing of 18 aliphatic and aromatic amines and amino alcohols and five examples showing quantitative %ee determination with good accuracy.

Optical Analysis of Reaction Yield and Enantiomeric Excess: A New Paradigm Ready for Prime Time

This Perspective highlights the advances of optical methods for asymmetric reaction discovery. Optical analysis allows for the determination of absolute configuration, enantiomeric excess and reaction yield that is amenable to high-throughput experimentation. Thus, the synthetic organic community is encouraged to incorporate the methods discussed to expedite the development of high-yielding, enantioselective transformations.

Stoichiometrically controlled chirality inversion in zinc bisporphyrinate–monoamine complexes

A novel bisporphyrin with a naphthalenecarboxamide substituent on the linker demonstrates tuning of chirality transfer from guest to host. Stoichiometrically controlled chirality inversion was observed with 1-(1-naphthyl)ethylamine as the guest.

Cholic acid dimers as invertible amphiphilic pockets: synthesis, molecular modeling, and inclusion studies

Two dimers of cholic acid were synthesized through simple covalent linkers. The dimers form invertible molecular pockets in media of different polarity; hydrophobic pockets are formed in water and hydrophilic pockets are formed in organic media. Fluorescence studies show that pockets formed by these dimers can serve as invertible hosts for the hydrophobic guest pyrene and the hydrophilic guest coumarin 343. The molecular pocket also enhances dissolution of the weakly soluble cresol red sodium salt in organic media. Molecular modeling was performed to better understand the host–guest complexation process of the invertible amphiphilic pockets. The calculated free energy changes indicate that the two dimers form the most stable complexes with coumarin 343 at a host to guest ratio of 2:2, whereas the host to guest ratio differs in the formation of complexes with pyrene for the two dimers. The dimer with the shorter, less flexible linker seems to form host–guest complexes that are more stable in both water and organic solvents.

Host-guest assembly for highly sensitive probing of a chiral mono-alcohol with a zinc trisporphyrinate

A zinc trisporphyrinate has been developed as a chirality sensor for chiral mono-alcohols. In its structure, there are two "spaces" surrounded by three porphyrin moieties, which allow guests to fill in. It has shown extremely high CD sensitivity for a chiral mono-alcohol with a naphthyl substituent, 1-(1-naphthyl)ethanol, at μM level, which is at least three orders of magnitude lower concentration than previous reports. A crystallographic study of the host-guest complex reveals the binding of 1-(1-naphthyl)ethanol to the zinc trisporphyrinate is greatly enhanced by multipoint interactions, such as coordination interactions, hydrogen bonding, π-π and CH···π interactions etc. Spectroscopic studies suggest the corresponding binding constant K1 is over 105 M-1, which is two or three orders of magnitude larger than other mono-alcohols. Among porphyrin systems, this trisporphyrin have the strongest binding affinity for 1-(1-naphthyl)ethanol, which leads to the highest CD sensitivity.

Synthesis and characterization of β,β′-linked porphyrin-chlorin heterodimers and their metallic complexes

Two β,β′-linked porphyrin-chlorin heterodimers have been successfully synthesized with 4-fluorophenyl or 4-chlorophenyl substituted aldehyde as starting reagents. But those aldehydes with bulkier substituents did not lead to the corresponding heterodimers. These porphyrin-chlorin heterodimers and their metallic complexes have been characterized by X-ray crystallography. In all the structures, the pyrroline group in chlorin moiety and the pyrrole group in porphyrin moiety are directly connected by a single bond. Pyrroline ring has two sp[Formula: see text] hybridized carbons. The direct bonding makes the porphyrin and chlorin moieties closely contact with each other, pyrroline group and the pyrrole group forms a dihedral angle of ~70°. If porphyrin-chlorin heterodimers have bulkier substituents, the close contact could cause too much repulsion. That is probably why they can not be synthesized. For nickel complexes, the chlorin planes show large saddling and moderate ruffling conformation. The C–H⋯[Formula: see text] interaction could contribute to the saddling conformation. The distorted core makes dihedral angles and metal to metal distances between porphyrin and chlorin plane much smaller than those in their copper complexes. Their NMR, UV-visible and fluorescence spectral data have also been briefly discussed.

Discrimination of Enantiomers of Dipeptide Derivatives with Two Chiral Centers by Tetraaza Macrocyclic Chiral Solvating Agents Using 1H NMR Spectroscopy

1H NMR spectroscopy is often used to discriminate enantiomers of chiral analytes and determine their enantiomeric excess (ee) by various chiral auxiliaries. In reported research, these studies were mainly focused on chiral discriminantion of chiral analytes with only one chiral center. However, many chiral compounds possessing two or more chiral centers are often found in natural products, chiral drugs, products of asymmetric synthesis and biological systems. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate their chiral discrimination by effective chiral auxiliaries using 1H NMR spectroscopy. In this paper, a new class of tetraaza macrocyclic chiral solvating agents (TAMCSAs) with two amide (CONH), two amino (NH) and two phenolic hydroxyl (PhOH) groups has been designed and synthsized for chiral discrimination towards dipeptide derivatives with two chiral centers. These dipeptide derivatives are important chiral species because some of them are used as clinical drugs and special dietary supplements for treatment of human diseases, such as L-alanyl-L-glutamine and aspartame. The results show that these TAMCSAs have excellent chiral discriminating properties and offer multiple detection possibilities pertaining to 1H NMR signals of diagnostic split protons. The nonequivalent chemical shifts (up to 0.486 ppm) of various types of protons of these dipeptide derivatives were evaluated with the assistance of well-resolved 1H NMR signals in most cases. In addition, enantiomeric excesses (ee) of the dipeptide derivatives with different optical compositions have been calculated based on integration of well-separeted proton signals. At the same time, the possible chiral discriminating behaviors have been discussed by means of Job plots, ESI mass spectra and a proposed theoretical model of (±)-G1 with TAMCSA 1c. Additionally, the association constants of enantiomers of (±)-G5 with TAMCSA 1a were calculated by employing the nonlinear curve-fitting method.

Chirality imprinting and direct asymmetric reaction screening using a stereodynamic Brønsted/Lewis acid receptor

Molecular recognition, activation and dynamic self-assembly with Brønsted and Lewis acids play a central role across the chemical sciences including catalysis, crystal engineering, supramolecular architectures and drug design. Despite this general advance, the utilization of the corresponding binding motifs for fast and robust quantitative chemosensing of chiral compounds in a complicate matrix has remained challenging. Here we show that a stereodynamic probe carrying complementary boronic acid and urea units achieves this goal with hydroxy carboxylic acids. Synergistic dual-site binding and instantaneous chirality imprinting result in characteristic ultraviolet and CD readouts that allow instantaneous determination of the absolute configuration, enantiomeric excess and concentration of the target compound even in complex mixtures. The robustness and practicality of this strategy for high-throughput screening purposes is demonstrated. Comprehensive sensing of only 0.5 mg of a crude reaction mixture of an asymmetric reduction eliminates cumbersome work-up protocols and minimizes analysis time, labour and waste production.

Determining results of asymmetric reactions can take long periods of time and consume large amounts of organic solvents during work-up and analysis. Here, the authors report a bifunctional organic probe that can bind to chiral hydroxyacids, and provide yield, enantiomeric excess and absolute configuration even with crude mixtures.

Conceptual design of tetraazaporphyrin- and subtetraazaporphyrin-based functional nanocarbon materials: electronic structures, topologies, optical properties, and methane storage capacities

A large variety of conceptual three- and fourfold tetraazaporphyrin- and subtetraazaporphyrin-based functional 3D nanocage and nanobarrel structures have been proposed on the basis of in silico design. The designed structures differ in their sizes, topology, porosity, and conjugation properties. The stability of nanocages of Oh symmetry and nanobarrels of D4h symmetry was revealed on the basis of DFT and MD calculations, whereas their optical properties were assessed using a TDDFT approach and a long-range corrected LC-wPBE exchange-correlation functional. It was shown that the electronic structures and vertical excitation energies of the functional nanocage and nanobarrel structures could be easily tuned via their size, topology, and the presence of bridging sp(3) carbon atoms. TDDFT calculations suggest significantly lower excitation energies in fully conjugated nanocages and nanobarrels compared with systems with bridging sp(3) carbon fragments. Based on DFT and TDDFT calculations, the optical properties of the new materials can rival those of known quantum dots and are superior to those of monomeric phthalocyanines and their analogues. The methane gas adsorption properties of the new nanostructures and nanotubes generated by conversion from nanobarrels were studied using an MD simulation approach. The ability to store large quantities of methane (106-216 cm(3) (STP) cm(-3)) was observed in all cases with several compounds being close to or exceeding the DOE target of 180 cm(3) (STP) cm(-3) for material-based methane storage at a pressure of 3.5 MPa and room temperature.

Crystallographic and Spectroscopic Studies of a Host-Guest Complex Consisting of a Novel Zinc Trisporphyrinate and a Chiral Monoamine

We have designed and synthesized a novel zinc trisporphyrinate with a benzene tricarboxamide as the linker. In the presence of a large excess of 1-phenylethylamine, single crystals of the corresponding 1:3 host-guest complex were obtained, which provide the crystallographic structure of a host-guest complex consisting of an achiral porphyrin and a chiral monoamine. The structure reveals the 1-phenylethylamines adopt the "inside" binding mode that is stabilized by intramolecular hydrogen bonds. The NH2 of the 1-phenylethylamine is involved in both coordination and hydrogen bonding interactions. Circular dichroism (CD) and ultraviolet-visible spectra revealed that the 1:3 host-guest complex is dominant in the presence of a large excess of 1-phenylethylamine. The crystal structure shows there are two diastereomers of the 1:3 host-guest complexes. Density functional theory and TDDFT calculations suggest that one of the diastereomers is more energetically favorable, which dominates the CD signals.

Miniature high-throughput chemosensing of yield, ee, and absolute configuration from crude reaction mixtures

High-throughput experimentation (HTE) has emerged as a widely used technology that accelerates discovery and optimization processes with parallel small-scale reaction setups. A high-throughput screening (HTS) method capable of comprehensive analysis of crude asymmetric reaction mixtures (eliminating product derivatization or isolation) would provide transformative impact by matching the pace of HTE. We report how spontaneous in situ construction of stereodynamic metal probes from readily available, inexpensive starting materials can be applied to chiroptical chemosensing of the total amount, enantiomeric excess (ee), and absolute configuration of a wide variety of amines, diamines, amino alcohols, amino acids, carboxylic acids, α-hydroxy acids, and diols. This advance and HTS potential are highlighted with the analysis of 1 mg of crude reaction mixtures of a catalytic asymmetric reaction. This operationally simple assay uses a robust mix-and-measure protocol, is amenable to microscale platforms and automation, and provides critical time efficiency and sustainability advantages over traditional serial methods.

Comprehensive chirality sensing: development of stereodynamic probes with a dual (chir)optical response

The attachment of a salicylaldehyde ring and a cofacial aryl or heteroaryl N-oxide chromophore onto a naphthalene scaffold affords stereodynamic probes designed to rapidly bind amines, amino alcohols, or amino acids and to translate this binding event via substrate-to-receptor chirality amplification into a dual (chir)optical response. 1-(3'-Formyl-4'-hydroxyphenyl)-8-(9'-anthryl)naphthalene (1) was prepared via two consecutive Suzuki cross-coupling reactions, and the three-dimensional structure and racemization kinetics were studied by crystallography and dynamic HPLC. This probe proved successful for chirality sensing of several compounds, but in situ IR monitoring of the condensation reaction between the salicylaldehyde moiety in 1 and phenylglycinol showed that the imine formation takes 2 h. Optimization of the substrate binding rate and the circular dichroism (CD) and fluorescence readouts led to the replacement of anthracene with smaller fluorophores capable of intramolecular hydrogen bonding. 1-(3'-Formyl-4'-methoxyphenyl)-8-(4'-isoquinolyl)naphthalene N-oxide (2) and its pyridyl analogue 3 combine fast substrate binding with distinctive chiral amplification. This asymmetric transformation of the first kind prompts CD and fluorescence responses that can be used for in situ determination of the absolute configuration, ee, and total concentration of many compounds. The general utility of the three chemosensors was successfully tested on 18 substrates.

The effect of alkylation, protonation, and hydroxyl group substitution on reversible alcohol and water addition to 2- and 4-formyl pyridine derivatives

The regiochemical influence of hydroxyl or methoxy substitution on 2- and 4-formyl pyridine derivatives upon alcohol and water addition was studied.

Chirality sensing using stereodynamic probes with distinct electronic circular dichroism output

Circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy is one of the most useful techniques for the stereochemical analysis of chiral biopolymers and fine chemicals. It has become invaluable for the assignment of the absolute configuration, the study of conformational isomers, and the determination of racemization kinetics of CD active chiral compounds. Molecular interactions between a nonracemic chiral substrate and a chromophoric, CD-silent probe that is achiral or exists as a racemic mixture of rapidly interconverting enantiomeric conformations or configurations can induce a strong, characteristic chiroptical readout. A covalent or noncovalent binding event that coincides with a well-defined asymmetric induction process can effectively imprint the chiral information of the substrate on the stereodynamic sensor and thus generate intense Cotton effects in the UV region of the latter. The probe can thus function as a stereochemical reporter unit and analysis of the CD spectrum often provides accurate information about the absolute configuration and enantiomeric composition of the substrate used. In this review, recent developments in circular dichroism analysis of chiral compounds with stereodynamic probes are described and particular emphasis is given to sensor design, chiral induction processes and applications scope.