Aminodifluorosulfinium salts: selective fluorination reagents with enhanced thermal stability and ease of handling.

Diethylaminodifluorosulfinium tetrafluoroborate (XtalFluor-E) and morpholinodifluorosulfinium tetrafluoroborate (XtalFluor-M) are crystalline fluorinating agents that are more easily handled and significantly more stable than Deoxo-Fluor, DAST, and their analogues. These reagents can be prepared in a safer and more cost-efficient manner by avoiding the laborious and hazardous distillation of dialkylaminosulfur trifluorides. Unlike DAST, Deoxo-Fluor, and Fluolead, XtalFluor reagents do not generate highly corrosive free-HF and therefore can be used in standard borosilicate vessels. When used in conjunction with promoters such as Et(3)N.3HF, Et(3)N.2HF, or DBU, XtalFluor reagents effectively convert alcohols to alkyl fluorides and carbonyls to gem-difluorides. These reagents are typically more selective than DAST and Deoxo-Fluor and exhibit superior performance by providing significantly less elimination side products.

Carbonyldiimidazole-mediated Lossen rearrangement.

Carbonyldiimidazole (CDI) was found to mediate the Lossen rearrangement of various hydroxamic acids to isocyanates. This process is experimentally simple and mild, with imidazole and CO(2) being the sole stoichiometric byproduct. Significant for large-scale application, the method avoids the use of hazardous reagents and thus represents a green alternative to standard processing conditions for the Curtius and Hofmann rearrangements.

Aminodifluorosulfinium tetrafluoroborate salts as stable and crystalline deoxofluorinating reagents.

Aminodifluorosulfinium tetrafluoroborate salts were found to act as efficient deoxofluorinating reagents when promoted by an exogenous fluoride source and, in most cases, exhibited greater selectivity by providing less elimination byproduct as compared to DAST and Deoxo-Fluor. Aminodifluorosulfinium tetrafluoroborates are easy handled crystalline salts that show enhanced thermal stability over dialkylaminosulfur trifluorides, are storage-stable, and unlike DAST and Deoxo-Fluor do not react violently with water.

Mild and direct conversion of quinoline N-oxides to 2-amidoquinolines with primary amides.

[reaction: see text] A simple, one-pot procedure is described for the direct conversion of quinoline N-oxides to alpha-amidoquinolines with primary amides. This methodology is complimentary to the Abramovich reaction, which is limited to the introduction of secondary amides via imidoyl chlorides. Although reaction conditions are quite similar, omission of the base is key for successful reaction with primary amides, which were found not to proceed through the intermediacy of an imidoyl chloride but rather through an acyl isocyanate.

Cu-catalyzed N-arylation of oxazolidinones: an efficient synthesis of the kappa-opioid receptor Agonist CJ-15161.

An efficient method for intermolecular N-arylation of oxazolidinones using catalytic copper in the presence of a bidentate ligand is reported. The conditions allow the use of copper and can be used to prepare enantiopure N-aryl beta-amino alcohols. A short, scalable synthesis of CJ-15,161 is also reported. The required amines were obtained from the precursor alpha-amino acids or, more conveniently, from the corresponding 1,2-amino alcohols.

Pharmaceutical impurity identification: a case study using a multidisciplinary approach.

A multidisciplinary team approach to identify pharmaceutical impurities is presented in this article. It includes a representative example of the methodology. The first step is to analyze the sample by LC-MS. If the structure of the unknown impurity cannot be conclusively determined by LC-MS, LC-NMR is employed. If the sample is unsuitable for LC-NMR, the impurity needs to be isolated for conventional NMR characterization. Although the technique of choice for isolation is preparative HPLC, enrichment is often necessary to improve preparative efficiency. One such technique is solid-phase extraction. For complete verification, synthesis may be necessary to compare spectroscopic characteristics to those observed in the original sample. Although not widely practiced, an effective means of getting valuable structural information is to conduct a degradation study on the purified impurity itself. This systematic strategy was successfully applied to the identification of an impurity in the active pharmaceutical ingredient 1-(1,2,3,5,6,7-hexahydro-s-indacen-4-yl)-3-[4-(1-hydroxy-1-methyl-ethyl)-furan-2-sulphonylurea. Identification required the use of all of the previously mentioned techniques. The instability of the impurity under acidic chromatographic conditions presented an additional challenge to purification and identification. However, we turned this acidic instability to an advantage, conducting a degradation study of the impurity, which provided extensive and useful information about its structure. The following discussion describes how the information gained from each analytical technique was brought together in a complementary fashion to elucidate a final structure.

Phosphine-mediated [4 + 2] annulation of bis(enones): a Lewis base catalyzed "mock Diels-Alder" reaction.

Lewis-base-catalyzed cycloisomerization of bis(enones) to decalins has been demonstrated as an alternative to the traditional Lewis acid catalyzed Diels-Alder cycloaddition. In this process, a trialkylphosphine mediates both bond formation steps in two distinct catalytic cycles. The single-pot operation generates two carbon-carbon bonds and up to five contiguous stereocenters in one step, starting from achiral, aliphatic substrates; eight examples are provided. [reaction: see text]

5,5-Dimethyl-1,4,2-dioxazoles as versatile aprotic hydroxamic acid protecting groups.

5,5-Dimethyl-1,4,2-dioxazoles are readily installed by transketalization of 2,2-diethoxypropane, where both the NH and OH moieties are protected in a nonprotic form. The dioxazoles are stable to a wide variety of reaction conditions and readily revert back to the hydroxamic acid by treatment with Nafion-H in 2-propanol. The method is applicable to primary, secondary, tertiary, and aromatic hydroxamic acids, and the acidity of the protons adjacent to the dioxazole allows alpha-functionalization.