Chemical Approaches to Carbocyclic Nucleosides.

Nucleoside analogues are at the forefront of antiviral therapy for last decades. To circumvent some of their limitations, based on their metabolism, and in order to improve their anti-viral potency and selectivity, several families of nucleoside analogues have been described through structural modifications at the sugar and heterocycles. The replacement of the oxygen of the nucleoside by a methylene has led to the family of carbocyclic (or cyclopentane) nucleoside analogues. Various potent anti-HIV and anti-HBV drugs belong to this family. Main syntheses of carbocyclic analogues of nucleosides used Diels-Alder reactions (in racemic or asymmetric series), but also started from carbohydrates (ribose, glucose), as a source of optically active compounds, which then had to be transformed into carbacycles under various conditions. The growing interest in carbocyclic nucleosides has led several groups, including ours, to develop new analogues and to explore novel routes. This article will review some of the recent chemistry developed on selected five-membered ring carbocyclic nucleosides.

Recent Developments in Amide Synthesis Using Nonactivated Starting Materials.

Amides are unquestionably one of the most important functional groups in organic chemistry because of their presence in numerous interesting molecules such as peptides, pharmaceutical agents, naturally occurring molecules, proteins and alkaloids, among others. This synopsis surveys the diverse recent approaches to amide synthesis from nonactivated carboxylic acids and derivatives as well as noncarboxylic compounds, highlighting the most innovative methodologies and those that are more eco-friendly compared to traditional methods while focusing on recent developments during the past two years.

Insights into the Pummerer synthesis of oxazolines.

A rapid and simple method to access unnatural 2-substituted 5-thio oxazolines has been developed. This methodology is based on a Pummerer reaction followed by an intramolecular nucleophilic substitution, which changes the paradigm for the normal use of a base in Pummerer chemistry. We also provide a useful two-step method for the synthesis of the starting material and a mechanistic proposal based on experimental observations, which contests the previously proposed reaction pathway. The reaction proved to be general, and different substituents, such as alkyl, aryl, alkenyl and functionalized groups, can be used without a significant decrease in efficiency.

Transamidation of carboxamides catalyzed by Fe(III) and water.

The highly efficient transamidation of several primary, secondary, and tertiary amides with aliphatic and aromatic amines (primary and secondary) is described. The reaction is performed in the presence of a 5 mol % concentration of different hydrated salts of Fe(III), and the results show that the presence of water is crucial. The methodology was also applied to urea and phthalimide to demonstrate its versatility and wide substrate scope. An example of its use is an intramolecular application in the synthesis of 2,3-dihydro-5H-benzo[b]-1,4-thiazepin-4-one, which is the bicyclic core of diltiazem and structurally related drugs (Budriesi, R.; Cosimelli, B.; Ioan, P.; Carosati, E.; Ugenti, M. P.; Spisani, R. Curr. Med. Chem. 2007, 14, 279-287). A plausible mechanism that explains the role of water is proposed on the basis of experimental observations and previous mechanistic suggestions for transamidation reactions catalyzed by transition metals such as copper and aluminum. This methodology represents a significant improvement over other existing methods; it can be performed in air and with wet or technical grade solvents.