Dipeptide-catalysed Michael reaction under physiological conditions: Examination of potential bioorthogonality

Reactions for drug synthesis under cell-like conditions or even inside living cells can potentially be used e.g., to minimize toxic side effects, to maximize bioactive compound efficacy and/or to address drug delivery problems. Those reactions should be bioorthogonal to enable the generation of drug-like compounds with sufficiently good yields. In the known bioorthogonal Michael reactions, using thiols and phosphines as nucleophiles (e.g., in CS and CP bond formation reactions) is very common. No bioorthogonal Michael addition with a carbon nucleophile is known yet. Therefore, the development of such a reaction might be interesting for future drug discovery research. In this work, the metal-free Michael addition between cyclohexanone and various trans-β-nitrostyrenes (CC bond formation reaction), catalysed by a dipeptide salt H-Pro-Phe-O-Na+, was investigated for the first time in the presence of glutathione (GSH) and in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS). We demonstrated that with electron-withdrawing substituents on the aromatic ring and in β-position of the trans-β-nitrostyrene yields up to 64% can be obtained under physiological conditions, indicating a potential bioorthogonality of the studied Michael reaction. In addition, the selected Michael products demonstrated activity against human ovarian cancer cells A2780. This study opens up a new vista for forming bioactive compounds via CC bond formation Michael reactions under physiological (cell-like) conditions.

Additive and Emergent Catalytic Properties of Dimeric Unnatural Amino Acid Derivatives: Aldol and Conjugate Additions

Different densely substituted L- and D-proline esters were prepared by asymmetric (3+2) cycloaddition reactions catalyzed by conveniently selected EhuPhos chiral ligands. The γ-nitro-2-alkoxycarbonyl pyrrolidines thus obtained in either their endo or exo forms were functionalized and coupled to yield the corresponding γ-dipeptides. The catalytic properties of these latter dimers were examined using aldol and conjugate additions as case studies. When aldol reactions were analyzed, an additive behavior in terms of stereocontrol was observed on going from the monomers to the dimers. In contrast, in the case of the conjugate additions between ketones and nitroalkenes, the monomers did not catalyze this reaction, whereas the different γ-dipeptides promoted the formation of the corresponding Michael adducts. Therefore, in this latter case emergent catalytic properties were observed for these novel γ-dipeptides based on unnatural proline derivatives. Under certain conditions stoichiometric amounts of ketone, acid and nitroalkene), formation of N-acyloxy-2-oxooctahydro-1H-indoles was observed.

Recent Advances in Asymmetric Organocatalyzed Conjugate Additions to Nitroalkenes

The asymmetric conjugate addition of carbon and heteroatom nucleophiles to nitroalkenes is a very interesting tool for the construction of highly functionalized synthetic building blocks. Thanks to the rapid development of asymmetric organocatalysis, significant progress has been made during the last years in achieving efficiently this process, concerning chiral organocatalysts, substrates and reaction conditions. This review surveys the advances in asymmetric organocatalytic conjugate addition reactions to α,β-unsaturated nitroalkenes developed between 2013 and early 2017.