Synthesis of racemic cis-5-hydroxy-3-phthalimidoglutarimide. A metabolite of thalidomide isolated from human plasma

[reaction: see text] A synthesis of the glutarimide-derived metabolite of thalidomide, 5'-hydroxythalidomide (2), is described. The synthesis employed the lactone derivative of N-benzyloxycarbonyl (CBZ)-protected 4-hydroxyglutamic acid 12, which is prepared by a de novo route from diethyl acetamidomalonate. The reaction of 12 with 4-methoxybenzylamine gave the corresponding isoglutamine, which then provided the key CBZ-protected N-PMB-glutarimide 14 after dehydration. Deprotection of both the CBZ and PMB groups followed by phthalimidation and deacetylation of the 3-amino-5-acetoxyglutarimide 16 afforded 2.     

EPR studies on the thiophenodithiazolyl radical, C4H2S3N

Selective chlorination of thiophene-2,3-dithiol with SO(2)Cl(2) generates the corresponding sulfenyl chloride, 2,3-C(4)H(2)S(SCl)(2). Subsequent condensation with Me(3)SiN(3) yields the thiophenodithiazolylium salt [C(4)H(2)S(3)N]Cl, [TDTA]Cl. The structure of the cation, TDTA+, was established by X-ray diffraction as both its AsF(6)(-) and HSO(4)(-) salts. Reduction of [TDTA]Cl with Ag powder yields the radical TDTA* which was characterised by X- and Q-band (9 and 34 GHz) EPR and ENDOR studies. The spin density distributions estimated from the EPR/ENDOR measurements were found to be in very good agreement with those determined by DFT (B3LYP/6-31G*) indicating that ca 10% of the spin density is delocalised onto the thiophene ring. Comparison of the spin density distributions in TDTA* and the isoelectronic trithiatriazapentalenyl radical C(2)S(3)N(3), TTTA*, indicates that replacement of N by C-H leads to a localisation of the spin density on the dithiazolyl ring.     

Synthesis of self‐healing supramolecular rubbers from fatty acid derivatives,diethylene triamine,and urea

We describe the synthesis of supramolecular self‐healing elastomers from vegetable oil fatty acid derivatives, diethylene triamine, and urea. Our strategy to obtain materials that are self‐healing but do not flow relies on the use of a wide molecular distribution of randomly branched oligomers equipped with self‐complementary and complementary hydrogen bonding groups. We prepared such oligomers with a two steps procedure. In the first step, diethylene triamine was condensed with dimer acids. In the second step, the oligomers obtained were allowed to react with urea. The molecules were characterized by NMR and IR spectroscopies and Monte‐Carlo simulations were used to analyze the molecular size distribution. The sensitivity to small variations of the experimental conditions has been examined and the robustness of the synthetic procedure optimized. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 46: 7925–7936, 2008     

Towards the total synthesis of Calyculin C: preparation of the C13-C25 spirocyclic core

A stereoselective synthesis of the C₁₃-C₂₅ of Calyculin C is described. Key steps involve the coupling of a terminal acetylene with a thiol ester and subsequent spirocyclisation using a double intramolecular hetero-Michael addition.     

Structure determination of slowly exchanging conformers in solution using high‐resolution NMR,computational modeling and DFT‐GIAO chemical shielding: application to an erythronolide A derivative

We discuss and demonstrate the potential of HSQC‐TOCSY and HSQC‐NOESY experiments to offer solutions for overlap problems in COSY and NOESY spectra, leading to improved signals that can be unambiguously assigned to individual carbons. Direct comparison of experimental ¹H and ¹³C chemical shielding with density functional theory (DFT)‐calculated values are uninformative; in contrast, the relative differences in experimental shielding between pairs of molecules correlates well with the relative differences in DFT‐GIAO shielding for the computed lowest energy conformers. A detailed application of both experimental and theoretical techniques is illustrated for slowly exchanging conformers of an erythronolide A derivative, which demonstrates that structure determination can strongly benefit from the interplay between experiment and theory. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reactivity of methacrylates in insertion polymerization

Polymerization of ethylene by complexes [{(P^O)PdMe(L)}] (P^O = κ(2)-(P,O)-2-(2-MeOC(6)H(4))(2)PC(6)H(4)SO(3))) affords homopolyethylene free of any methyl methacrylate (MMA)-derived units, even in the presence of substantial concentrations of MMA. In stoichiometric studies, reactive {(P^O)Pd(Me)L} fragments generated by halide abstraction from [({(P^O)Pd(Me)Cl}μ-Na)(2)] insert MMA in a 1,2- as well as 2,1-mode. The 1,2-insertion product forms a stable five-membered chelate by coordination of the carbonyl group. Thermodynamic parameters for MMA insertion are ΔH(++) = 69.0(3.1) kJ mol(-1) and ΔS(++) = -103(10) J mol(-1) K(-1) (total average for 1,2- and 2,1-insertion), in comparison to ΔH(++) = 48.5(3.0) kJ mol(-1) and ΔS(++) = -138(7) J mol(-1) K(-1) for methyl acrylate (MA) insertion. These data agree with an observed at least 10(2)-fold preference for MA incorporation vs MMA incorporation (not detected) under polymerization conditions. Copolymerization of ethylene with a bifunctional acrylate-methacrylate monomer yields linear polyethylenes with intact methacrylate substituents. Post-polymerization modification of the latter was exemplified by free-radical thiol addition and by cross-metathesis.     

Anion-π Interaction for Molecular Recognition of Anions: Focus on Cooperativity with Hydrogen Bonding

Anion recognition represents an active area of research in supramolecular chemistry. The last two decades have been marked by spectacular advances in the design of new anion receptors. Moreover, the development of approaches combining experimental and theoretical studies has proved to be particularly relevant, allowing for a better understanding and rationalization of the phenomena involved in anion complexation processes. In this context, the combination of weak interactions within the same receptor and their synergistic effects, called cooperativity, has attracted increasing interest within the scientific community. This Review focuses on the combination of anion-π and hydrogen bonds and the emerging concept of cooperativity. The most relevant anion-π donor families are presented. The concept of cooperativity is illustrated using the most recent examples present in current literature.     

van der Waals corrected density functional calculations of the adsorption of benzene on the Cu (111) surface

We investigate the performance of several van der Waals (vdW) functionals at calculating the interactions between benzene and the copper (111) surface, using the local orbital approach in the SIESTA code. We demonstrate the importance of using surface optimized basis sets to calculate properties of pure surfaces, including surface energies and the work function. We quantify the errors created using (3 × 3) supercells to study adsorbate interactions using much larger supercells, and show non‐negligible errors in the binding energies and separation distances. We examine the eight high‐symmetry orientations of benzene on the Cu (111) surface, reporting the binding energies, separation distance, and change in work function. The optimized vdW‐DF(optB88‐vdW) functional provides superior results to the vdW‐DF(revPBE) and vdW‐DF2(rPW86) functionals, and closely matches the experimental and experimentally deduced values. This work demonstrates that local orbital methods using appropriate basis sets combined with a vdW functional can model adsorption between metal surfaces and organic molecules.