An efficient PyAOP-based C4-amination method for direct access of oxidized 5MedC derivatives

In the past decade, synthetic oxidized ^5-MedC nucleosides and their derivatives have become essential tools for epigenetic research. The low efficacy of both conventional and newly reported BOP methods on C⁴-amination of these specific oxidized ^5-MedU substrates urged us to systematically investigate how the nature of onium salt-based coupling reagents affects the C⁴-amination of pyrimidine nucleobases and lead us to the findings that different onium coupling reagents result in the formation of distinctive activation intermediates and PyAOP is much more potent than BOP in both activation and aminolysis steps. Direct amination without the need of ribose protection, ultrafast activation, tolerance to aqueous N-nucleophiles, and excellent yields for diverse oxidized ^5MedC derivatives are the advantages of this PyAOP-based C⁴-amination method.