Hindered dialkyl ether synthesis with electrogenerated carbocations.

Hindered ethers are of high value for various applications; however, they remain an underexplored area of chemical space because they are difficult to synthesize via conventional reactions1,2. Such motifs are highly coveted in medicinal chemistry, because extensive substitution about the ether bond prevents unwanted metabolic processes that can lead to rapid degradation in vivo. Here we report a simple route towards the synthesis of hindered ethers, in which electrochemical oxidation is used to liberate high-energy carbocations from simple carboxylic acids. These reactive carbocation intermediates, which are generated with low electrochemical potentials, capture an alcohol donor under non-acidic conditions; this enables the formation of a range of ethers (more than 80 have been prepared here) that would otherwise be difficult to access. The carbocations can also be intercepted by simple nucleophiles, leading to the formation of hindered alcohols and even alkyl fluorides. This method was evaluated for its ability to circumvent the synthetic bottlenecks encountered in the preparation of 12 chemical scaffolds, leading to higher yields of the required products, in addition to substantial reductions in the number of steps and the amount of labour required to prepare them. The use of molecular probes and the results of kinetic studies support the proposed mechanism and the role of additives under the conditions examined. The reaction manifold that we report here demonstrates the power of electrochemistry to access highly reactive intermediates under mild conditions and, in turn, the substantial improvements in efficiency that can be achieved with these otherwise-inaccessible intermediates.

Atroposelective Total Synthesis of Darobactin A.

A concise, modular synthesis of the novel antibiotic darobactin A is disclosed. The synthesis successfully forges the hallmark strained macrocyclic ring systems in a sequential fashion. Key transformations include two atroposelective Larock-based macrocyclizations, one of which proceeds with exquisite regioselectivity despite bearing an unprotected alkyne. The synthesis is designed with medicinal chemistry considerations in mind, appending key portions of the molecule at a late stage. Requisite unnatural amino acid building blocks are easily prepared in an enantiopure form using C-H activation and decarboxylative cross-coupling tactics.

Chiral anion phase transfer of aryldiazonium cations: an enantioselective synthesis of C3-diazenated pyrroloindolines.

Herein is reported the first asymmetric utilization of aryldiazonium cations as a source of electrophilic nitrogen. This is achieved through a chiral anion phase-transfer pyrroloindolinization reaction that forms C3-diazenated pyrroloindolines from simple tryptamines and aryldiazonium tetrafluoroborates. The title compounds are obtained in up to 99% yield and 96% ee. The air- and water-tolerant reaction allows electronic and steric diversity of the aryldiazonium electrophile and the tryptamine core.

Total synthesis reveals atypical atropisomerism in a small-molecule natural product, tryptorubin A.

Molecular shape defines function in both biological and material settings, and chemists have developed an ever-increasing vernacular to describe these shapes. Noncanonical atropisomers-shape-defined molecules that are formally topologically trivial but are interconvertible only by complex, nonphysical multibond torsions-form a unique subset of atropisomers that differ from both canonical atropisomers (e.g., binaphthyls) and topoisomers (i.e., molecules that have identical connectivity but nonidentical molecular graphs). Small molecules, in contrast to biomacromolecules, are not expected to exhibit such ambiguous shapes. Using total synthesis, we found that the peptidic alkaloid tryptorubin A can be one of two noncanonical atropisomers. We then devised a synthetic strategy that drives the atropospecific synthesis of a noncanonical atrop-defined small molecule.

Electrochemical C(sp3)-H Fluorination.

A simple and robust method for electrochemical alkyl C-H fluorination is presented. Using a simple nitrate additive, a widely available fluorine source (Selectfluor), and carbon-based electrodes, a wide variety of activated and unactivated C-H bonds were converted to their C-F congeners. The scalability of the reaction was also demonstrated with a 100 gram preparation of fluorovaline.

Scalable and safe synthetic organic electroreduction inspired by Li-ion battery chemistry.

Reductive electrosynthesis has faced long-standing challenges in applications to complex organic substrates at scale. Here, we show how decades of research in lithium-ion battery materials, electrolytes, and additives can serve as an inspiration for achieving practically scalable reductive electrosynthetic conditions for the Birch reduction. Specifically, we demonstrate that using a sacrificial anode material (magnesium or aluminum), combined with a cheap, nontoxic, and water-soluble proton source (dimethylurea), and an overcharge protectant inspired by battery technology [tris(pyrrolidino)phosphoramide] can allow for multigram-scale synthesis of pharmaceutically relevant building blocks. We show how these conditions have a very high level of functional-group tolerance relative to classical electrochemical and chemical dissolving-metal reductions. Finally, we demonstrate that the same electrochemical conditions can be applied to other dissolving metal-type reductive transformations, including McMurry couplings, reductive ketone deoxygenations, and epoxide openings.