Novel oxygen chirality induced by asymmetric coordination of an ether oxygen atom to a metal center in a series of sugar-pendant dipicolylamine copperII complexes

Six sugar-pendant 2,2'-dipicolylamine (DPA) ligands (L1-3 and L'1-3) have been prepared. OH-protected and unprotected D-glucose, D-mannose, and D-xylose were attached to a DPA moiety via an O-glycoside linkage. X-ray crystallography of the copper(II) complexes (1-5) with these ligands revealed that the anomeric oxygen atom is coordinated to the metal center in the solid state, generating a chiral center at the oxygen atom. The CD spectra of these copper complexes in methanol or aqueous solution exhibit Cotton effects in the d-d transition region, which indicates that the ether oxygen atoms remain coordinated to the metal center and the oxygen-atom chirality is preserved even in solution. For complexes 1 and 2, the inverted oxygen-atom chirality and chelate-ring conformation in the solid state are well correlated with the mirror-image CD spectra in methanol solution. The concomitant inversion of the asymmetric configuration around the copper center was also observed in a methanol solution of complex 3 and a pyridine solution of complex 2. The square-pyramidal/octahedral copper(II) centers also exhibited characteristic absorption and CD spectra.