Transformations of benzothiadiphosphole system: General one‐pot synthesis of 1,2,5‐dithiaphosphepines and their precursor phosphanethiols

Treatment, at room temperature, of benzothiadiphosphole 1 with BrMg(CH₂)₅MgBr gives intermediate A , which was allowed to stand for about 3 h at room temperature. The subsequent addition of RMgX to the reaction mixture and the final treatment with an excess of S₈ and water affords the dithiaphosphepine sulfide 8 in good yields. The structure of this new heterocyclic system, containing both an S S unit and a PS group, is confirmed by an single crystal X‐ray structure determination. If the reaction is carried out without final treatment with sulfur we obtain, using PhMgBr as mono‐Grignard reagent, the corresponding ring‐opened product 11b , which can be easily transformed into the corresponding ring‐opened sulfide 12b by simple treatment with elemental sulfur. Further addition of sulfur to 12b gives quantitatively the cyclic dithiaphosphepine sulfide 8b . The two phosphanethiols 11b and 12b are of considerable interest. In fact, recently, attention has increasingly been paid to the coordination chemistry of polydentate ligands incorporating both thiolate and tertiary phosphine groups, also known as S P S pincer ligands. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heteroatom Chem 16:339–345, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/hc.20099     

A Variational Approach to the Macroscopic Electrodynamics of Anisotropic Hard Superconductors

We consider Bean’s critical state model for anisotropic superconductors. A variational problem solved by the quasi-static evolution of the internal magnetic field is obtained as the Γ-limit of functionals arising from Maxwell’s equations combined with a power law for the dissipation. Moreover, the quasi-static approximation of the internal electric field is recovered, using a first order necessary condition. If the sample is a long cylinder subjected to an axial uniform external field, the macroscopic electrodynamics is explicitly determined.     

A new solution for an old problem: the regiochemical distribution of the acyl chains in galactolipids can be established by electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry

Electrospray ionization-quadrupole ion trap mass spectrometry (ESI-QITMS), either in positive- or in negative-ion mode, has been used to establish the chemical structures (chain length, degree of unsaturation, positional distribution) of the fatty acids attached to the primary (sn-1) and secondary (sn-2) hydroxyl groups of the glycerol moiety of natural monogalactosyl- (MGDG) and digalactosyldiacylglycerols (DGDG), isolated from the freshwater dinoflagellate Glenodinium sanguineum and from a marine diatom belonging to the genus Chaetoceros. Fragmentation by collision-induced dissociation of a single component in MGDG and DGDG mixtures, separated by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and detected on-line by tandem positive-ion ESI-MS, leads to a clear-cut determination of the positional distribution of the sn-glycerol-bound fatty acyl chains. Reversed-phase liquid chromatography allowed a partial resolution of the component mixture before ESI-MS/MS analysis. These results were validated by comparison with ESI-MS data obtained for the sn-2 lysoglyceroglycolipids synthesized via regiospecific enzymatic hydrolysis of the corresponding diacylglycerols by Rhizopus arrhizus lipase.     

Sequential multiphoton absorption enhancement induced by zinc complexation in functionalized distyrylbenzene analogs

Functionalized distyrylbenzene analogs and , bearing a tris-(2-pyridylmethyl)amine-based receptor for Zn(2+), were synthesized by a Horner-Emmons-Wittig coupling reaction. It has been found that Zn(2+) complexation induces changes in the linear absorption spectrum that enhance a nonlinear sequential two-photon absorption of nanosecond pulses at 532 nm. This absorption was also found to depend on the nature of the substituent at the side benzene ring of the styrylbenzene structure.     

Novel Aplysinopsin-Type Alkaloids from Scleractinian Corals of the Family Dendrophylliidae of the Mediterranean and the Philippines. Configurational-assignment criteria,stereospecific synthesis,and photoisomerization

From the scleractinian coral Tubastraea sp. (Dendrophylliidae) collected at Palawan, Philippines, 3′-deimino-3′-oxoaplysinopsin ( 4 ) and 6-bromo-3′-deimino-3′-oxoaplysinopsin ( 6 ) are now isolated as 5:2 mixtures of (E/Z) stereoisomers. The 3′-deimino-2′,4′-bis(demethyl)-3′-oxoaplysinopsin ( 7 ) and 6-bromo-3′-demino-2′,4-bis(demethyl)-3′-oxoaplysinopsin ( 5 ) are isolated as 2:3 and 1:1 (E/Z) mixtures, respectively, from another dendrophylliid, Leptopsammia pruvoti, collected near Marseille, Mediterranean coast of France. Larger amounts of these and related compounds, needed for a full structural determination, are obtained by synthesis. Thus, condensations of indol-3-carboxaldehyde (9) or of its 6-bromo derivative 14 with hydantoin (15) , 3-methylhydantoin (11) , or 1,3dimethylhydantoin (10) give the prevalent natural aplysinopsins with high stereospecificity. The minor stereoisomers (Z)- 4 , (Z)- 6 , (E)- 7 , and (E)- 5 are obtained by (E/Z) photoisomerization under UV light of the condensation mixtures. The configuration is assigned from larger H? C(8)/C(5′) ¹H, ¹³C couplings in the (E) than in the (Z) isomer, and, in the case of 4 and 6 , from NOE enhancement at Me? N(2′) on irradiation at H? C(8). The stereospecificity of the condensations is attributed to steric inhibition to planarity in the rate-limiting transition states, due to N(2′)/H? C(2) repulsion with (Z)- 4 and (Z)- 6 , or to C(5′)?O/H? C(2) repulsion with (E)–7 or (E)- 5 . As the aplysinopsins undergo (E/Z ) phostoisomerization also under the daylight conditions of the laboratory, their isomeric composition in nature can not be presently assessed.     

Scaled particle theory study of the length scale dependence of cavity thermodynamics in different liquids

It has been noted that the work of cavity creation in water exhibits a crossover behavior, in that its cavity size dependence changes from volume dependence for small cavities to area dependence for larger cavities [Lum, K.; Chandler, D.; Weeks, J. D. J. Phys. Chem. B 1999, 103, 4570]. It is shown here that this behavior can be reproduced using the scaled particle theory in a straightforward manner for six different liquids (water, methanol, ethanol, benzene, cyclohexane, and carbon tetrachloride). It has also been suggested that the crossover is due to a change in the physical mechanism of the process, from one entropy-dominated to another enthalpy-dominated. However, the crossover behavior can be produced using the scaled particle theory without invoking any change in any physical mechanism. Also, the crossover occurs at a length scale of the size of the liquid molecules, as has been pointed out by others. This is the length regime where the work of cavity creation bears little relation to the bulk liquid surface tension. In addition, it is pointed out that cavity creation can always be considered as a purely entropy-driven process, which is usually accompanied by another process with compensating enthalpy and entropy changes.     

Some estimates of the minimizing properties of web functions

We study a general class of functionals over and we approximate their infimum by means of the minimum in the space of web functions. We provide several tools for estimating this approximation and we study in detail some meaningful models. Received: 13 July 2000 / Accepted: 11 May 2001 / Published online: 19 October 2001     

PENTACOORDINATE SPIROCYCLIC DERIVATIVES OF THE 2H-1,2,3-DIAZAPHOSPHOLE SYSTEM

Abstract

Stable spirocyclic phosphoranes 2 have been prepared stereospecifically in high yields (90–95%) by reaction of o-azidophenol with cis and trans-diazaphosphole derivatives 1. Slow isomerization of pure diastereoisomer 2 was observed in acidic conditions.     

The Phosphoenolpyruvate Phosphorylation: A Self-Organized Mechanism with Implications to Understand the RNA Transformations

In this article, we present a study about the non-enzymatic hydrolysis of phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) by following the reaction course through ³¹P NMR spectroscopy. We have demonstrated that PEP in water exists mainly as a very stable cyclic pentacoordinate phosphorus compound in equilibrium with other cyclic forms. This explains the PEP stability in water. In contrast, after addition of an alcohol to a PEP aqueous solution, other very unstable cyclic pentacoordinated intermediates are formed, which immediately collapse, giving a feasible phosphorylation of the alcohol. It is known that cyclic pentacoordinated phosphorus intermediates are favored over the corresponding acyclic intermediates by a factor of 10⁶–10⁸, and this preference, found also in this study, might be the “driver mechanism” able to overcome the clutter of abiotic chemistry, thus permitting formation of pre-RNA molecules probably with a “self-organized process.”