Synthesis of 1,2,4-Triazol-3-imines via Selective Stepwise Cycloaddition of Nitrile Imines with Organo-cyanamides.

A convenient method for the synthesis of 1,2,4-triazol-3-imines through a selective, formal, 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of organo-cyanamide ions with nitrile imine dipoles is reported. Hydrolysis of the 1,2,4-triazol-3-imines yields the corresponding 1,2,4-triazol-5-ones. A stepwise mechanism, supported by DFT calculations, is invoked to explain the reaction selectivity.

Folding Patterns in a Family of Oligoamide Foldamers.

A series of small, unsymmetrical pyridine-2,6-dicarboxylamide oligoamide foldamers with varying lengths and substituents at the end groups were synthetized to study their conformational properties and folding patterns. The @-type folding pattern resembled the oxyanion-hole motifs of enzymes, but several alternative folding patterns could also be characterized. Computational studies revealed several alternative conformers of nearly equal stability. These folding patterns differed from each other in their intramolecular hydrogen-bonding patterns and aryl-aryl interactions. In the solid state, the foldamers adopted either the globular @-type fold or the more extended S-type conformers, which were very similar to those foldamers obtained computationally. In some cases, the same foldamer molecule could even crystallize into two different folding patterns, thus confirming that the different folding patterns are very close in energy in spite of their completely different shapes. Finally, the best match for the observed NOE interactions in the liquid state was a conformation that matched the computationally characterized helix-type fold.

"Predicting" Polymorphs of Pharmaceuticals Using Hydrogen Bond Propensities: Probenecid and Its Two Single-Crystal-to-Single-Crystal Phase Transitions.

The recently developed hydrogen-bonding propensity tool in the Cambridge Structural Database software package (Mercury) was tested to predict polymorphs. The compounds for the study were chosen from a list of approximately 300 pharmaceutically important compounds, for which multiple crystal forms had not been previously reported. The hydrogen-bonding propensity analysis was carried out on approximately 60 randomly selected compounds from this list. Several compounds with a high probability for exhibiting polymorphism in the analysis were chosen for a limited experimental crystal form screening. One of the compounds, probenecid, did not yield polymorphs by traditional solution crystallization screening, but differential scanning calorimetry revealed three polymorphs. All of them exhibit the same hydrogen bonding and transform via two reversible single-crystal-to single-crystal transformations, which have been characterized in detail through three single-crystal structure determinations at appropriate temperatures.

Dynamic stereoisomerization in inherently chiral bimetallic [2]catenanes.

Stereoisomerization and the unprecedented phenomenon of metal translocation in the absence of redox processes were probed in two inherently chiral bimetallic [2]catenanes by using a combination of variable-temperature (1)H NMR and CD spectroscopies, X-ray crystallography, and DFT calculations.

Kitaigorodsky revisited: polymorphism and mixed crystals of acridine/phenazine.

Non-stoichiometric molecular mixed crystals have potential as functional materials, the properties of which can be tailored by rationally changing their composition. The guidelines for their preparation were summarized over thirty years ago by Alexander Kitaigorodsky. Here those principles are revised in light of new studies on the acridine/phenazine system, and solvent-assisted grinding is presented as a convenient synthetic procedure to afford a more homogeneous product than traditional solvent-evaporation methods. Finally, the proposed prerequisite of crystal isostructurality/isomorphicity for the pure compounds, which seems to be violated in the present case, is discussed.

Resorcinarene bis-thiacrowns: prospective host molecules for silver encapsulation.

Mixed-donor atom tetramethoxy resorcinarene bis-thiacrown hosts, in which the crown unit contains both hard oxygen and soft sulfur donor atoms, were synthesized for soft metal cation binding. The binding properties were investigated both in solution and in the solid state by NMR spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography. It was found that the resorcinarene bis-thiacrowns were able to complex silver cations with remarkable affinity forming readily 1:2 host-guest complexes in solution. The solid state structures also revealed that the bis-thiacrowns form silver complexes in an unanticipated endo- and exo-cavity fashion within the same host molecule. Both the solution and solid state studies indicated the sulfur atoms to be the major contributing donor atoms in forming the binding interactions with silver cations.

Conformational polymorphism and amphiphilic properties of resorcinarene octapodands.

o-Nitroaniline functionalized resorcinarene octapodands 1-5 with pendant methyl, ethyl, pentyl, nonyl or 1-decenyl groups, respectively, were synthesized and their structural properties investigated using X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy. The upper rim of each podand is identical containing flexible side arms, in which rotation around the -OCH(2)CH(2)N- linkers create excellent possibilities for polymorphism. Two conformational polymorphs of acetone solvate of 2 were identified containing different side arm orientation and crystal packing. Compound 1 crystallized from acetone and nitromethane yielding two pseudopolymorphs with different packing motifs. The longer alkyl chains of 3-5 lead to differences in solubility and induce amphiphilic properties, which were studied at the air-water interface using the Langmuir-film technique. Crystals of amphiphilic compound 5, which has hydrophobic alkyl tails at the lower rim and hydrophilic nitroaniline groups at the upper rim, showed an interesting packing motif with alternating aromatic and aliphatic layers. Versatile structures of the octapodands in solid state and in solution serve as an example of how conformational flexibility can be utilized in crystal engineering and creating self-assembling monolayer structures.

Non-centrosymmetric tetrameric assemblies of tetramethylammonium halides with uranyl salophen complexes in the solid state.

Ditopic salophen-UO(2) receptors 1-4 and 7 co-crystallize with tetramethylammonium (TMA) chloride and fluoride salts producing good quality crystals amenable for X-ray diffraction characterization. The arrangement of the receptor and salt units in the crystal lattice is such that tetrameric ball-shaped assemblies are formed, where an inner cluster of four TMA cations are surrounded by an outer shell of four UO(2)-bound anions. These elaborate architectures, which occur in all cases, regardless of a certain degree of structural modification on the receptors, lead to lattices that belong to non-centrosymmetric (NCS) space groups. Interestingly, the tetragonal symmetry of the tetrameric ball-shaped assemblies is either retained (I4̅) or lost (R3c and I4̅3d) at the lattice level, without compromising the NCS nature of the crystal lattices. The principal X-ray investigation on TMAX (X = Cl/F) co-crystals, that is, 1-(TMA)Cl, 2-(TMA)Cl, 3-(TMA)Cl, 4-(TMA)Cl, 7-(TMA)Cl, and 7-(TMA)F, is accompanied by NMR and electrospray ionization (ESI) mass spectrometry studies to gather additional insight on the modality of formation of the solid state structures observed. The important role of cation-π interactions in the receptor-salt recognition process is renewed and strengthened by comparison with NMR titration data with a novel reference compound, the salophen-UO(2) complex 8. Given the importance of NCS and polar crystalline solids in the development of functional materials, this study shows that this property can be introduced into elaborate host-guest systems, as those which assemble in the architectures described here, thus expanding its field of applicability.

Zirconocene complexes bearing novel 3-dimethylamino-1,2-dihydropentalene derived ligand systems.

Coupling of the N,N-dimethylacrylamides 6a-c with cyclopentadienide resulted in the formation of the substituted 3-dimethylamino-1,2-dihydropentalnenes 2a-c. Deprotonation followed by metallation with CpZrCl(3)·DME gave the substituted zirconocenes 12a-c. The reaction of 3-dimethylamino-1-methyl-dihydropentalene 2a with ZrCl(2)(NMe(2))(2)·2THF resulted in a unique coupling between a pair of the aminodihydropentalene derivatives to yield an unsymmetrically bridged novel ansa-zirconocene framework (9a). Treatment of the 1,1-dimethyl-substituted substrate 2b with this Zr-amido reagent in contrast resulted in a clean deprotonation and formation of the unbridged bis(dimethylaminohydropentalenyl)ZrCl(2) complexes 10b. The compounds 2a, 9a, meso-10b, 12a and 12c were characterized by X-ray diffraction.