Traceless Solid-Phase Synthesis of Fused Chiral Macrocycles via Conformational Constraint-Assisted Cyclic Iminium Formation.

Natural products comprising chiral molecular scaffolds containing fused medium-sized cycles and macrocycles represent an important and relevant pharmacological target for the discovery and development of new drugs. Here, we describe traceless solid-phase synthesis of acyclic intermediates amenable to cyclization to medium (11) and large (12) fused rings. The key aspect of the synthetic strategy is incorporation of a specific conformation constraint that facilitates cyclization in favor of 11- and 12-membered rings rather than possible 7-membered ones. The role of constraints in preorganization required for cyclization is supported by computational analysis. The synthesis involves cyclic N-sulfonyliminium-nucleophilic addition chemistry as the key ring-forming reaction and proceeds with complete stereocontrol of the newly formed stereogenic center. We document the scope and limitations of this strategy in the synthesis of 11+5, 11+6, 11+7, and 12+6 fused rings representing molecular scaffolds with 3D architecture that mimic complex natural products.

Death Becomes Them: Bacterial Community Dynamics and Stilbene Antibiotic Production in Cadavers of Galleria mellonella Killed by Heterorhabditis and Photorhabdus spp.

UNLABELLED: Insect larvae killed by entomopathogenic nematodes are thought to contain bacterial communities dominated by a single bacterial genus, that of the nematode's bacterial symbiont. In this study, we used next-generation sequencing to profile bacterial community dynamics in greater wax moth (Galleria mellonella) larvae cadavers killed by Heterorhabditis nematodes and their Photorhabdus symbionts. We found that, although Photorhabdus strains did initially displace an Enterococcus-dominated community present in uninfected G. mellonella insect larvae, the cadaver community was not static. Twelve days postinfection, Photorhabdus shared the cadaver with Stenotrophomonas species. Consistent with this result, Stenotrophomonas strains isolated from infected cadavers were resistant to Photorhabdus-mediated toxicity in solid coculture assays. We isolated and characterized a Photorhabdus-produced antibiotic from G. mellonella cadavers, produced it synthetically, and demonstrated that both the natural and synthetic compounds decreased G. mellonella-associated Enterococcus growth, but not Stenotrophomonas growth, in vitro Finally, we showed that the Stenotrophomonas strains described here negatively affected Photorhabdus growth in vitro Our results add an important dimension to a broader understanding of Heterorhabditis-Photorhabdus biology and also demonstrate that interspecific bacterial competition likely characterizes even a theoretically monoxenic environment, such as a Heterorhabditis-Photorhabdus-parasitized insect cadaver. IMPORTANCE: Understanding, and eventually manipulating, both human and environmental health depends on a complete accounting of the forces that act on and shape microbial communities. One of these underlying forces is hypothesized to be resource competition. A resource that has received little attention in the general microbiological literature, but likely has ecological and evolutionary importance, is dead/decaying multicellular organisms. Metazoan cadavers, including those of insects, are ephemeral and nutrient-rich environments, where resource competition might shape interspecific macrobiotic and microbiotic interactions. This study is the first to use a next-generation sequencing approach to study the community dynamics of bacteria within a model insect cadaver system: insect larvae parasitized by entomopathogenic nematodes and their bacterial symbionts. By integrating bioinformatic, biochemical, and classic in vitro microbiological approaches, we have provided mechanistic insight into how antibiotic-mediated bacterial interactions may shape community dynamics within insect cadavers.

Synthesis of quinazolines from N-(2-nitrophenylsulfonyl)iminodiacetate and alpha-(2-nitrophenylsulfonyl)amino ketones via 2H-indazole 1-oxides.

Base-catalyzed rearrangement of 2H-indazoles 1-oxides, prepared by tandem carbon-carbon followed by nitrogen-nitrogen bond formations from easily accessible N-alkyl-2-nitro-N-(2-oxo-2-aryl-ethyl)-benzenesulfonamides using glycine, 2-nitrobenzenesulfonyl chlorides, and bromo ketones/acetates, yielded high purity quinazolines.

Synthesis of readily cleavable immobilized 1,10-phenanthroline resins.

1,10-Phenanthroline is derivatized and ultimately immobilized on two different polystyrene/divinylbenzene solid supports using convenient methodology. All syntheses are amenable to semiautomatic processing and are scalable for high-throughput screening. A domino copper-catalyzed coupling-cyclization reaction is used to illustrate applicability in catalytic studies.