Improved and ligand-free copper-catalyzed cyclization for an efficient synthesis of benzimidazoles from o-bromoarylamine and nitriles.

We present an improved copper-catalyzed cyclization for an efficient synthesis of benzimidazoles from o-bromoarylamine and nitriles, under mild and ligand-free conditions. The optimal conditions yielded exceptional products of up to 98%, demonstrating the broad applicability of this synthetic strategy in generating a wide range of valuable imidazole derivatives. This methodology enables the efficient synthesis of various substituted benzimidazole derivatives and offers an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional methods. By eliminating the use of harsh reagents and high temperatures associated with traditional synthesis approaches, this method proves to be more efficient and robust. Notably, we successfully applied this synthetic approach to the synthesis of bendazol and thiabendazole, yielding 82% and 78%, respectively, on a 100 gram scale.

Exploring the hydrophobic channel of NNIBP leads to the discovery of novel piperidine-substituted thiophene3,2-pyrimidine derivatives as potent HIV-1 NNRTIs

In this report, a series of novel piperidine-substituted thiophene[3,2-]pyrimidine derivatives were designed to explore the hydrophobic channel of the non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors binding pocket (NNIBP) by incorporating an aromatic moiety to the left wing of the lead . The newly synthesized compounds were evaluated for anti-HIV potency in MT-4 cells and inhibitory activity to HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT). Most of the synthesized compounds exhibited broad-spectrum activity toward wild-type and a wide range of HIV-1 strains carrying single non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTI)-resistant mutations. Especially, compound exhibited the most potent activity against wild-type and a panel of single mutations (L100I, K103N, Y181C, Y188L and E138K) with an EC ranging from 6.02 to 23.9 nmol/L, which were comparable to those of etravirine (ETR). Moreover, the RT inhibition activity, preliminary structure-activity relationship and molecular docking were also investigated. Furthermore, exhibited favorable pharmacokinetics (PK) profiles and with a bioavailability of 33.8%. Taken together, the results could provide valuable insights for further optimization and compound holds great promise as a potential drug candidate for the treatment of HIV-1 infection.