Philicity of Acetonyl and Benzoyl Radicals: A Comparative Experimental and Computational Study.

In this work, the reactivities of acetonyl and benzoyl radicals in aromatic substitution and addition reactions have been compared in an experimental and computational study. The results show that acetonyl is more electrophilic than benzoyl, which is rather nucleophilic. A Hammett plot analysis of the addition reactions of the two radicals to substituted styrenes clearly support the nucleophilicity of benzoyl, but in the case of acetonyl, no satisfactory linear correlation with a single substituent-related parameter was found. Computational calculations helped to rationalize this effect, and a good linear correlation was found with a combination of polar parameters (σ+ ) and the radical stabilization energies of the formed intermediates. Based on the calculated philicity indices for benzoyl and acetonyl, a quantitative comparison of these two radicals with many other reported radicals is possible, which may help to predict the reactivities of other aromatic radical substitution reactions.

NMR-based assignment of isoleucine vs. allo-isoleucine stereochemistry.

A simple 1H and 13C NMR spectrometric analysis is demonstrated that permits differentiation of isoleucine and allo-isoleucine residues by inspection of the chemical shift and coupling constants of the signals associated with the proton and carbon at the α-stereocentre. This is applied to the estimation of epimerisation during metal-free N-arylation and peptide coupling reactions.

Effects of stereochemistry, saturation, and hydrocarbon chain length on the ability of synthetic constrained azacyclic sphingolipids to trigger nutrient transporter down-regulation, vacuolation, and cell death.

Constrained analogs containing a 2-hydroxymethylpyrrolidine core of the natural sphingolipids sphingosine, sphinganine, N,N-dimethylsphingosine and N-acetyl variants of sphingosine and sphinganine (C2-ceramide and dihydro-C2-ceramide) were synthesized and evaluated for their ability to down-regulate nutrient transporter proteins and trigger cytoplasmic vacuolation in mammalian cells. In cancer cells, the disruptions in intracellular trafficking produced by these sphingolipids lead to cancer cell death by starvation. Structure activity studies were conducted by varying the length of the hydrocarbon chain, the degree of unsaturation and the presence or absence of an aryl moiety on the appended chains, and stereochemistry at two stereogenic centers. In general, cytotoxicity was positively correlated with nutrient transporter down-regulation and vacuolation. This study was intended to identify structural and functional features in lead compounds that best contribute to potency, and to develop chemical biology tools that could be used to isolate the different protein targets responsible for nutrient transporter loss and cytoplasmic vacuolation. A molecule that produces maximal vacuolation and transporter loss is expected to have the maximal anti-cancer activity and would be a lead compound.

Synthesis of 1- and 4-substituted piperazin-2-ones via Jocic-type reactions with N-substituted diamines.

Enantiomerically-enriched trichloromethyl-containing alcohols, obtained by asymmetric reduction, can be transformed regioselectively into 1-substituted piperazinones by modified Jocic reactions with little or no loss of stereochemical integrity. This methodology can be easily used to synthesise important pharmaceutical compounds such as the fluorobenzyl intermediate of a known PGGTase-I inhibitor.

Trichloromethyl ketones: asymmetric transfer hydrogenation and subsequent Jocic-type reactions with amines.

Amino-amides are important pharmaceutical building-blocks. The enantioselective reduction of trichloromethyl ketones using ruthenium transfer hydrogenation catalysts is reported. The products react in a range of Jocic-type reactions to give enantiomerically enriched amino-amides.