Diastereoselective synthesis of fulleropyrrolidines from suitably functionalized chiral cyclobutanes

The first diastereoselective synthesis of fulleropyrrolidines endowed with diastereomerically pure functionalized cyclobutanes is reported. The new C(60)-based cyclobutane derivatives 7a,b and 9 are suitably functionalized for further incorporation into peptide surrogates.     

On Pappus-Type Theorems on the Volume in Space Forms

Let c be a curve in a n-dimensional space form M ⁿ , let P _t bea totally geodesic hypersurface of M ⁿ orthogonal to c at c(t),and let D₀ be a domain in P ₀. If D is thedomain in M ⁿ obtained by a motion of D₀ alongc and D _t is the domain in P _t obtained by the motion ofD₀ from 0 to t, we show that the n-volume ofD depends only on the length of the curve c, its first curvature, themodified (n – 1)-volume of D₀ and the moment of D _t with respect to the totally geodesic hypersurface of P _t orthogonal to the normal vector f ₂(t) of c. As a consequence, if c(0) is the center of mass of D₀, then the n-volume ofD is the product of the modified (n – 1)-volume of D₀ and the length of c. We get an analogous theorem for ahypersurface of M ⁿ obtained by parallel motion of ahypersurface of P ₀ along c.     

A theoretical study of the barbier reaction

Semiempirical MO calculations are shown to provide a more detailed picture of the radical ion mechanism of the Barbier reaction in the general case. Calculated electron affinities give a clue for its extension to other cases.     

Massive docking of flexible ligands using environmental niches in parallelized genetic algorithms

Virtual screening of large libraries of small compounds requires fast and reliable automatic docking methods. In this article we present a parallel implementation of a genetic algorithm (GA) and the implementation of an enhanced genetic algorithm (EGA) with niching that lead to remarkable speedups compared to the original version AutoDock 3.0. The niching concept is introduced naturally by sharing genetic information between evolutions of subpopulations that run independently, each on one CPU. A unique set of additionally introduced search parameters that control this information flow has been obtained for drug‐like molecules based on the detailed study of three test cases of different complexity. The average docking time for one compound is of 8.6 s using eight R10,000 processors running at 200 MHz in an Origin 2000 computer. Different genetic algorithms with and without local search (LS) have been compared on an equal workload basis showing EGA/LS to be superior over all alternatives because it finds lower energy solutions faster and more often, particularly for high dimensionality problems. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Comput Chem 22: 1971–1982, 2001     

Copper-free intramolecular alkyne-azide cycloadditions leading to seven-membered heterocycles

Treatment of alk-2-ynyl derivatives of enantiopure phenylglycidol with NaN(3) triggers a cascade reaction consisting of stereospecific and regioselective epoxide ring opening followed by intramolecular azide-alkyne cycloaddition under strictly metal-free conditions. This simple one-pot procedure allows a fast buildup of molecular complexity, generating a wide array of triazolooxazepinols, triazolodiazepinols, and triazolothiazepinols.     

Development of a UHPLC method for the assessment of the metabolic profile of cinitapride

An ultra high-performance liquid chromatographic method was developed to study the cinitapride metabolism. Metabolites were generated from the incubation of cinitapride with human liver microsomes. Cinitapride and its metabolites were separated by reversed-phase mode using a formate aqueous solution (pH 6.5) and acetonitrile as the components of the mobile phase. Chromatographic conditions, including the establishment of an elution gradient, were optimized for obtaining the maximum number of resolved components in the minimum analysis time. Experimental design and multicriteria decision-making strategies were utilized to facilitate the optimization of chromatographic conditions. Figures of merit were evaluated with cinitapride standards and incubated samples. Limits of detection are about 0.03 μmol/L, and repeatabilities are better than 0.06% for retention times and better than 3.5% for concentrations. The method was applied to characterize the in vitro cinitapride metabolism with human liver microsomes.     

Organomagnesium clusters: Structure, stability, and bonding in archetypal models

We have studied the molecular structure and the nature of the chemical bond in the monomers and tetramers of the Grignard reagent CH₃MgCl as well as MgX₂ (X = H, Cl, and CH₃) at the BP86/TZ2P level of theory. For the tetramers, we discuss the stability of three possible molecular structures of C_2h, D_2h, and T_d symmetry. The most stable structure for (MgCl₂)₄ is D_2h, the one for (MgH₂)₄ is C_2h, and that of (CH₃MgCl)₄ is T_d. The latter is 38 kcal/mol more stable with chlorines in bridge positions and methyl groups coordinated to a Mg vertex than vice versa. We find through a quantitative energy decomposition analysis (EDA) that the tetramerization energy is predominantly composed of electrostatic attraction ΔV_elstat (60% of all bonding terms ΔV_elstat + ?E_oi) although the orbital interaction ?E_oi also provides an important contribution (40%).     

Dual fluorescence in 9-amino-2,7,12,17-tetraphenylporphycene

The absorption spectrum of the asymmetric 9-amino-2,7,12,17-tetraphenylporphycene shows new, strongly red-shifted bands compared to the symmetric parental 2,7,12,17-tetraphenylporphycene and to the also asymmetric 9-acetoxy-2,7,12,17-tetraphenylporphycene. Dual emission is also observed with relative contributions that depend strongly on the excitation wavelength and temperature. The gap between the two fluorescence bands is 84 nm. Tautomerization in both the ground and excited states is shown to account for these observations, the 9-amino group being particularly able to selectively lower the energy of the first excited singlet state of just one of the trans tautomers. Introduction of amino groups in porphycenes may be a convenient way to gain a deeper insight into the tautomerization mechanisms in this macrocyclic core.     

Dispersion corrections essential for the study of chemical reactivity in fullerenes

In a previous paper (J. Phys. Chem. A2009, 113, 9721), we analyzed theoretically the Diels-Alder cycloaddition between cyclopentadiene and C(60) for which experimental results on energy barriers and reaction energies are known. One of the main conclusions reached was that the two-layered ONIOM2(B3LYP/6-31G(d):SVWN/STO-3G) method provides results very close to the full B3LYP/6-31G(d) ones. Unfortunately, however, both the exothermicity of the reaction and the energy barrier were clearly overestimated by these two methods. In the present work, we analyze the effect of the inclusion of Grimme's dispersion corrections in the energy profile of this reaction. Our results show that these corrections are essential to get results close to the experimental values. In addition, we have performed calculations both with and without dispersion corrections for the Diels-Alder reaction of C(60) and several dienes and for the Diels-Alder cycloaddition of a (5,5) single-walled carbon nanotube and 1,3-cis-butadiene. The results obtained indicate that inclusion of dispersion corrections is compulsory for the study of the chemical reactivity of fullerenes and nanotubes.