Direct α-C-H bond functionalization of unprotected cyclic amines.

Cyclic amines are ubiquitous core structures of bioactive natural products and pharmaceutical drugs. Although the site-selective abstraction of C-H bonds is an attractive strategy for preparing valuable functionalized amines from their readily available parent heterocycles, this approach has largely been limited to substrates that require protection of the amine nitrogen atom. In addition, most methods rely on transition metals and are incompatible with the presence of amine N-H bonds. Here we introduce a protecting-group-free approach for the α-functionalization of cyclic secondary amines. An operationally simple one-pot procedure generates products via a process that involves intermolecular hydride transfer to generate an imine intermediate that is subsequently captured by a nucleophile, such as an alkyl or aryl lithium compound. Reactions are regioselective and stereospecific and enable the rapid preparation of bioactive amines, as exemplified by the facile synthesis of anabasine and (-)-solenopsin A.

(S)-5-ethynyl-anabasine, a novel compound, is a more potent agonist than other nicotine alkaloids on the nematode Asu-ACR-16 receptor.

Nematode parasites infect ∼2 billion people world-wide. Infections are treated and prevented by anthelmintic drugs, some of which act on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). There is an unmet need for novel therapeutic agents because of concerns about the development of resistance. We have selected Asu-ACR-16 from a significant nematode parasite genus, Ascaris suum, as a pharmaceutical target and nicotine as our basic moiety (EC50 6.21 ± 0.56 µM, Imax 82.39 ± 2.52%) to facilitate the development of more effective anthelmintics. We expressed Asu-ACR-16 in Xenopus oocytes and used two-electrode voltage clamp electrophysiology to determine agonist concentration-current-response relationships and determine the potencies (EC50s) of the agonists. Here, we describe the synthesis of a novel agonist, (S)-5-ethynyl-anabasine, and show that it is more potent (EC50 0.14 ± 0.01 µM) than other nicotine alkaloids on Asu-ACR-16. Agonists acting on ACR-16 receptors have the potential to circumvent drug resistance to anthelmintics, like levamisole, that do not act on the ACR-16 receptors.

Modification of the anabaseine pyridine nucleus allows achieving binding and functional selectivity for the α3ß4 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor subtype.

We report the design, synthesis and pharmacological screening of a group of analogues of anabaseine 2, a naturally occurring unselective nicotinic agonist. The novel nAChR ligands 5-15 were planned following a molecular modeling analysis which suggested the replacement of the pyridine ring of 2 with a 3-substituted benzene ring as a means to gain selectivity for the α3ß4 nAChR subtype. Overall, from binding experiments, the synthesized compounds showed high values of α3ß4 affinity and α3ß4 vs α4ß2 selectivity, although they poorly discriminated the homomeric α7 subtype. The three analogues 6, 12 and 13 were also evaluated in electrophysiological assays, and 12 [6-(3-iodophenyl)-2,3,4,5-tetrahydropyridine] emerged as a rather interesting nicotinic ligand. Indeed, in addition to a noteworthy affinity (Ki = 4.7 nM) for the α3ß4 subtype and to an excellent α3ß4 vs α4ß2 subtype selectivity (806-fold), compound 12 selectively activated the α3ß4 nAChR (EC50 = 7.4 µM) while eliciting a negligible response at the α7 subtype and no effect at the α4ß2 subtype.

Synthesis of chiral heterocycles by ligand-controlled regiodivergent and enantiospecific Suzuki Miyaura cross-coupling.

Non-aromatic nitrogen- and oxygen-containing heterocycles such as piperidines and pyrans are prevalent components of natural products and pharmaceutical drugs. Although it has been a workhorse as a synthetic method for assembling unsaturated sp(2)-hybridized substrates, transition metal-catalysed cross-coupling chemistry is traditionally not a suitable approach to prepare chiral non-aromatic heterocycles. Several mechanistic issues hamper the coupling of stereogenic secondary sp(3)-hybridized carbon-metal centres. Moreover, use of unsymmetrical allylic boronates in the Suzuki Miyaura cross-coupling is further complicated by the possibility of forming two regioisomeric products. Here we address this two-pronged problem and demonstrate that chiral enantiomerically enriched heterocyclic allylic boronates can be coupled with high stereochemical retention with a wide variety of aryl and alkenyl halides to independently afford both regioisomeric 2- and 4-substituted dihydropyrans and dehydropiperidines in high selectivity. A divergent mechanism is proposed where regiochemistry is governed by the nature of the ligands on the palladium catalyst. This scalable method is applied to the efficient preparation of the neuroactive alkaloid anabasine and the antidepressant drug paroxetine.

Synthesis and biological evaluation of nitromethylene neonicotinoids based on the enhanced conjugation.

The neonicotinoids with a nitroconjugated system had excellent bioactivity, which could rival imidacloprid, and has been previously reported. However, the photodegradation and hydrolysis of this series of neonicotinoids was very quick according to our further investigation, which cannot be developed as a pesticide further. The approach to further enhance the conjugation was tried not only to increase the bioactivities but also to improve the stability in water and in the sun. A substituted phenyl group was introduced into the furan ring of compound 3. A total of 13 novel neonicotinoid analogues with a higher conjugation system were designed and synthesized. The target molecular structures have been confirmed on the basis of satisfactory analytical and spectral data. All compounds presented significant insecticidal activities on cowpea aphid ( Aphis craccivora ), cotton aphid ( Aphis gossypii ), and brown planthopper ( Nilaparvata lugens ). The stability test exhibited that the stability of novel analogues in water and under the mercury lamp has been improved significantly in comparison to compound 3.

Pyrrole- and dihydropyrrole-fused neonicotinoids: design, synthesis, and insecticidal evaluation.

Versatile pyrrole- and dihydropyrrole-fused neonicotinoids were obtained from cyclic and non-cyclic nitroeneamines. Anhydrous aluminum chloride (AlCl3) exhibited high catalytic selectivity for the synthesis of the titled etherified compounds at room temperature and the eliminated products under reflux conditions. The target molecules have been identified on the basis of satisfactory analytical and spectral [¹H and ¹³C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS), and X-ray] data. All synthesized compounds have been screened for insecticidal activity. The preliminary insecticidal activity results showed that some of the aimed compounds displayed excellent insecticidal activity against cowpea aphids (Aphis craccivora).

Direct functionalization processes: a journey from palladium to copper to iron to nickel to metal-free coupling reactions.

The possibility of finding novel disconnections for the efficient synthesis of organic molecules has driven the interest in developing technologies to directly functionalize C-H bonds. The ubiquity of these bonds makes such transformations attractive, while also posing several challenges. The first, and perhaps most important, is the selective functionalization of one C-H bond over another. Another key problem is inducing reactivity at sites that have been historically unreactive and difficult to access without prior inefficient prefunctionalization. Although remarkable advances have been made over the past decade toward solving these and other problems, several difficult tasks remain as researchers attempt to bring C-H functionalization reactions into common use. The functionalization of sp(3) centers continues to be challenging relative to their sp and sp(2) counterparts. Directing groups are often needed to increase the effective concentration of the catalyst at the targeted reaction site, forming thermodynamically stable coordination complexes. As such, the development of removable or convertible directing groups is desirable. Finally, the replacement of expensive rare earth reagents with less expensive and more sustainable catalysts or abandoning the use of catalysts entirely is essential for future practicality. This Account describes our efforts toward solving some of these quandaries. We began our work in this area with the direct arylation of N-iminopyridinium ylides as a universal means to derivatize the germane six-membered heterocycle. We found that the Lewis basic benzoyl group of the pyridinium ylide could direct a palladium catalyst toward insertion at the 2-position of the pyridinium ring, forming a thermodynamically stable six-membered metallocycle. Subsequently we discovered the arylation of the benzylic site of 2-picolonium ylides. The same N-benzoyl group could direct a number of inexpensive copper salts to the 2-position of the pyridinium ylide, which led to the first description of a direct copper-catalyzed alkenylation onto an electron-deficient arene. This particular directing group offers two advantages: (1) it can be easily appended and removed to reveal the desired pyridine target, and (2) it can be incorporated in a cascade process in the preparation of pharmacologically relevant 2-pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyridines. This work has solved some of the challenges in the direct arylation of nonheterocyclic arenes, including reversing the reactivity often observed with such transformations. Readily convertible directing groups were applied to facilitate the transformation. We also demonstrated that iron can promote intermolecular arylations effectively and that the omission of any metal still permits intramolecular arylation reactions. Lastly, we recently discovered a nickel-catalyzed intramolecular arylation of sp(3) C-H bonds. Our mechanistic investigations of these processes have elucidated radical pathways, opening new avenues in future direct C-H functionalization reactions.

Discovery of novel α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor ligands via pharmacophoric and docking studies of benzylidene anabaseine analogs.

Based on pharmacophore elucidation and docking studies on interactions of benzylidene anabaseine analogs with AChBPs and α7 nAChR, novel spirodiazepine and spiroimidazoline quinuclidine series have been designed. Binding studies revealed that some of hydrogen-bond donor containing compounds exhibit improved affinity and selectivity for the α7 nAChR subtype in comparison with most potent metabolite of GTS-21, 3-(4-hydroxy-2-methoxybenzylidene)-anabaseine. Hydrophobicity and rigidity of the ligand also contribute into its binding affinity. We also describe alternative pharmacophoric features equidistant from the carbonyl oxygen atom of the conserved Trp-148 of the principal face, which may be exploited to further design diverse focused libraries targeting the α7 nAChR.

Design, synthesis, crystal structure analysis, and insecticidal evaluation of phenylazoneonicotinoids.

On the basis of research of the proposed modes of action between neonicotinoids and insect nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR), a series of phenylazoneonicotinoids were designed and synthesized to further promote the π-π interaction between molecule and amino acid residues. The target compounds have been identified on the basis of satisfactory analytical and spectral ((1)H NMR, (13)C NMR, HRMS, and X-ray) data. The preliminary results revealed that tiny differences in substitutes resulted in different configurations and great bioactivity variations. Some compounds with electron-donating groups on positions 2 and 6 of the phenyl ring presented higher insecticidal activity than imidacloprid against cowpea aphids ( Aphis craccivora ). The impressive crystal structure of the excellent insecticidal activity compound 9q clearly proved that the functional electronegative pharmacophore was approximately vertical to the methyleneimidazolidine plane. The differences in the mode of interaction on nAChR of typical compounds 9h and 9q remain unclear.

N-haloacetylimino neonicotinoids: potency and molecular recognition at the insect nicotinic receptor.

This structure-activity relationship study for neonicotinoids with an N-haloacetylimino pharmacophore identifies several candidate compounds showing outstanding insecticidal potency and consequently leads to establishing their molecular recognition at an insect nicotinic receptor structural model, wherein the neonicotinoid halogen atoms (fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine) variously interact with the receptor loops C-D interfacial niche via H-bonding and/or hydrophobic interactions.

Application of catalytic dynamic resolution of N-Boc-2-lithiopiperidine to the asymmetric synthesis of 2-aryl and 2-vinyl piperidines.

The highly enantioselective synthesis of 2-aryl- and 2-vinyl-piperidines has been accomplished through a catalytic dynamic resolution (CDR) of N-Boc-2-lithiopiperidine. The method has been applied to the synthesis of both enantiomers of the tobacco alkaloid anabasine.

Online fluorescence enhancement assay for the acetylcholine binding protein with parallel mass spectrometric identification.

The acetylcholine binding protein (AChBP) is considered an analogue for the ligand-binding domain of neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). Its stability and solubility in aqueous buffer allowed the development of an online bioaffinity analysis system. For this, a tracer ligand which displays enhanced fluorescence in the binding pocket of AChBP was identified from a concise series of synthetic benzylidene anabaseines. Evaluation and optimization of the bioaffinity assay was performed in a convenient microplate reader format and subsequently transferred to the online format. The high reproducibility has the prospect of estimating the affinities of ligands from an in-house drug discovery library injected in one known concentration. Furthermore, the online bioaffinity analysis system could also be applied to mixture analysis by using gradient HPLC. This led to the possibility of affinity ranking of ligands in mixtures with parallel high-resolution mass spectrometry for compound identification.

Discovery of bis-aromatic ring neonicotinoid analogues fixed as cis-configuration: Synthesis, insecticidal activities, and molecular docking studies.

A novel series of bis-aromatic ring neonicotinoid analogues (1a-1l, 2a-2c), were designed and prepared by introducing a new substituted aromatic ring into nitenpyram and forming a tetrahydropyrimidine ring, with the cis-configuration confirmed by X-ray diffraction. Preliminary bioassays showed most analogues exhibited good insecticidal activities at 100mg/L, and compound 1d and 2a were highly potent even at 10mg/L. Modeling the ligand-receptor complexes by molecular docking study explained the structure-activity relationships observed in vitro, which may provide some useful information for future design of new insecticides.

Synthesis of a neonicotinoide pesticide derivative via chemoenzymatic dynamic kinetic resolution.

Chemoenzymatic dynamic kinetic resolution (DKR) via combined ruthenium and enzyme catalysis was used in the key step of a synthesis of a neonicotinoid pesticide derivative (S)-3. The DKR was carried out under mild conditions with low catalyst loading. The method gives (S)-3 in high enantiomeric excess (98%).

Synthesis, crystal structure, insecticidal activity and DFT study on the geometry and vibration of O-(E)-1-{1-[(6-chloropyridin-3-yl)methyl]-5-methyl-1H-1,2,3-triazol-4-yl}ethyleneamino-O-ethyl-O-phenylphosphorothioate.

The title compound, O-(E)-1-{1-[(6-chloropyridin-3-yl)methyl]-5-methyl-1H-1,2,3-triazol-4-yl}ethyleneamino-O-ethyl-O-phenylphosphorothioate, has been synthesized via the condensation reaction of 1-{1-[(6-chloropyridin-3-yl)methyl]-5-methyl-1H-1,2,3-triazol-4-yl}ethanone oxime and O-ethyl-O-phenylphosphorochloridothioate in the presence of NaOH powder in refluxing EtOH. Its structure was characterized by (1)H NMR, FTIR, Raman, elemental analysis and X-ray single crystal diffraction. The results of preliminary bioassays indicated that the title compound displays good insecticidal activity. Density functional (DFT) calculations have been carried out for the title compound by using the Becke-Lee-Yang-Parr's three-parameter hybrid functional (B3LYP) method at 6-31G and 6-31G basis sets. The calculated results show that the predicted geometry can well reproduce the structural parameters. The vibrational wave numbers of the title compound were calculated at same level. Predicted vibrational frequencies have been assigned and compared with experimental IR and Raman spectra and they are supported each other.

Palladium-catalyzed direct C-h arylation of N-iminopyridinium ylides: application to the synthesis of (+/-)-anabasine.

Palladium-catalyzed direct C-H arylation of N-iminopyridinium ylides provides a powerful and versatile method for the synthesis of functionalized piperidines in good yields. Chemoselective functionalization of the pyridinium ring in the presence of a pyridine substituent is possible as exemplified by the expedient synthesis of anabasine in 61% overall yield over three steps.

A general procedure for the enantioselective synthesis of the minor tobacco alkaloids nornicotine, anabasine, and anatabine.

The minor tobacco alkaloids nornicotine, anabasine, and anatabine from Nicotiana tobacum are known to possess nicotinic receptor agonist activity, although they are relatively less potent than S-(-)-nicotine, the principal tobacco alkaloid. Previous pharmacological investigations and structure-activity studies have been limited owing to the lack of availability of the optically pure forms of these minor alkaloids. We now report a 2-step synthetic procedure for the enantioselective synthesis of the optical isomers of nornicotine and anabasine, and a modified procedure for the synthesis of anatabine enantiomers. These procedures involve initial formation of the chiral ketimine resulting from the condensation of either 1R, 2R, 5R-(+)- or 1S, 2S, 5S-(-)-2-hydroxy-3-pinanone with 3-(aminomethyl)pyridine followed by enantioselective C-alkylation with an appropriate halogenoalkane or halogenoalkene species, N-deprotection, and base-catalyzed intramolecular ring closure, to form the appropriate, chirally pure minor tobacco alkaloid. Using this approach, the R-(+)- and S-(-)-enantiomers of the above minor tobacco alkaloids were obtained in good overall chemical yield and excellent enantomeric excess.

Coaxing a pyridine nucleus to give up its aromaticity: synthesis and pharmacological characterization of novel conformationally restricted analogues of nicotine and anabasine.

A series of novel nicotine and anabasine related conformationally restricted compounds including those with pi-bonds in the connecting tether were synthesized following the hitherto unprecedented phenylsulfanyl group assisted generation of pyridine o-quinodimethane intermediates and their trapping by an intramolecular Diels-Alder reaction. Pharmacological characterization of some of these analogues at activating alpha3beta4 nAChRs was investigated, and constrained anabasine analogues 35 and 43 as well as constrained nicotine analogue 42 were found to exhibit moderately potent nicotinic agonist activity. Of special note is the fact that the pyrrolidinic nitrogen in these compounds is bound to a carbomethoxy group and, therefore, is not free to be protonated unlike all the known analogues of nicotine and anabasine, specifically designed as nAChRs agonists/antagonists. The structure-activity relationship studies indicate that when pi-cation interaction is absent, the position of chlorine atom in the pyridine ring and steric bulk at the connecting tether between the pyridine and pyrrolidine ring of the constrained nicotinic ligands are important descriptors for their binding affinity at alpha4beta2 and alpha3beta4 nAChRs as well as the subtype selectivity issue. These findings are likely to improve our understanding of the structural requirements for selectivity, which, at present, is probably the most important goal in the field of nicotinic ligands.

Studies on intramolecular Diels-Alder reactions of furo[3,4-c]pyridines in the synthesis of conformationally restricted analogues of nicotine and anabasine.

En route to conformationally restricted analogues of nicotine and anabasine, a novel synthetic route to bridged anabasines is described that hinges on a domino intramolecular [4 + 2]-cycloaddition/ring opening-elimination sequence of 3-amino-substituted furo[3,4-c]pyridines. Extension of this route to bridged nicotines, however, proved abortive, even when the dienophile tether is activated by a p-tolylsulfonyl group or when the diene moiety is activated by an electron-releasing methoxy substituent. A detailed density functional theoretical study (B3LYP/6-31+G) was undertaken to provide insight into the factors that facilitate an intramolecular Diels-Alder reaction in the former case.

Enantioselective synthesis of 2-arylpiperidines from chiral lactams. A concise synthesis of (-)-anabasine.

Cyclodehydration of achiral or racemic aryl-delta-oxoacids with (R)-phenylglycinol stereoselectively affords chiral non-racemic bicyclic lactams, from which the enantiodivergent synthesis of (R)- and (S)-2-phenylpiperidine, the diastereodivergent synthesis of cis- and trans-3-ethyl-2-phenylpiperidine, and the enantioselective synthesis of the piperidine alkaloid (-)-anabasine is reported.