Synthesis of tricyclic benzimidazole-iminosugars as potential glycosidase inhibitors via a Mitsunobu reaction.

A series of tricyclic benzimidazole-iminosugars 1(a-f) and 2(a-f) were synthesized and evaluated for their their inhibitory activities against five glycosidases. The synthesis initiated from the benzyl protected sugar (aldehyde) 5 that reacted with 1,2-diaminobenzene to afford aldo-benzimidazole 6 by the iodine-induced oxidative condensation. Then, tricyclic compound 7 was obtained in high yields of 73%-87% by the key Mitsunobu reaction through intramolecular cyclization of the unprotected OH and the NH in 6. After removal of the benzyl group in CF3SO3H, the target tricyclic benzimidazole-iminosugars 1 and 2 were achieved. The protocol was effective for the preparation of the tricyclic iminosugar in satisfactory yield. The results of the glycosidase inhibitory activities of 1 and 2 showed that three compounds derived from d-ribose exhibited specific and good inhibitory effects on ß-glucosidase. Among them, 1e-1 was the best one with IC50 value of 5.37 µM. All hydroxyl groups on ß-position would be favourable to the inhibitory activity of such tricyclic benzimidazole-iminosugars against ß-glucosidase.

Synthesis of pentacyclic iminosugars with constrained butterfly-like conformation and their HIV-RT inhibitory activity.

Novel pentacyclic iminosugars 1 and 2 with the constrained butterfly-like conformation were first synthesized by the key intramolecular click reaction from the tricyclic iminosugars fused benzo[e][1,3]thiazin-4-one 3 and 4. The pentacyclic iminosugar was constructed by fusing both benzo[e][1,3]thiazin-4-one and triazolo[5,1-c][1,4]oxazepine scaffolds. Their structures were determined by their 1H, 13C NMR, and HRMS (ESI) spectra and X-ray. The pentacyclic iminosugars 1(a-c), 2(a-b) and their corresponding protected precursors 13(a-c) and 14(a-b) were examined for their HIV reverse transcriptase (RT) inhibitory activities. The result showed that all compounds could effectively inhibit RT activity. Among them, compound 13c was the best one with the IC50 value of RT inhibitory activity of 0.69 µM. Structure-activity relationship analysis suggested that the improvement of the hydrophilicity of the pentacycles was of benefit to their anti-HIV RT activity.