Sulfilimines from a Medicinal Chemist's Perspective: Physicochemical and in Vitro Parameters Relevant for Drug Discovery.

While sulfoximines are nowadays a well established functional group for medicinal chemistry, the properties of sulfilimines are significantly less well studied, and no sulfilimine has progressed to the clinic to date. In this account, the physicochemical and in vitro properties of sulfilimines are reported and compared to those of sulfoximines and other more traditional functional groups. Furthermore, the impact on the physicochemical and in vitro properties of real drug scaffolds is studied in two series of sulfilimine-containing analogs of imatinib and hNE inhibitors.

C-H Activation and Sequential Addition to Dienes and Imines: Synthesis of Amines with -Quaternary Centers and Mechanistic Studies on the Complex Interplay Between the Catalyst and Three Reactants.

A Rh(III)-catalyzed sequential C-H bond addition to dienes and in situ formed aldimines was developed, allowing for the preparation of otherwise challenging to access amines with quaternary centers at the -position. A broad range of dienes were effective inputs and installed a variety of aryl and alkyl substituents at the quaternary carbon site. Aryl and alkyl sulfonamide and carbamate nitrogen substituents were incorporated by using different formaldimine precursors.

Synthesis of α-Quaternary Amides via Cp*Co(III)-Catalyzed Sequential C-H Bond Addition to 1,3-Dienes and Isocyanates.

The synthesis of sterically congested amides was accomplished via Cp*Co(III)-catalyzed sequential C-H bond addition to 1,3-dienes followed by aminocarbonylation with isocyanates, a coupling partner that had never been utilized in sequential C-H bond addition reactions. A variety of C-H bond reactants, internally substituted dienes, and aromatic isocyanates provided secondary amide products incorporating α-all-carbon quaternary centers. The conversion of the amide products to other useful compound classes was also demonstrated.

Synthesis of Monodehydro-Diketopiperazines Enabled by Cp*Rh(III)-Catalyzed Amine-Directed N-H Functionalization.

A two-step, diversity-building sequence to prepare monodehydro-diketopiperazines from readily accessible materials is reported. Rh(III)-catalyzed, amine-directed N-H functionalization of a variety of α-amino amides with a diazophosphonate ester and subsequent cyclization gives phosphonate-substituted diketopiperazines. A Horner-Wadsworth-Emmons reaction then provides monodehydro-diketopiperazines with high -alkene selectivity.

Disulfide Tethering to Map Small Molecule Binding Sites Transcriptome-wide.

We report the development of Tether-seq, a transcriptome-wide screen to probe RNA-small molecule interactions using disulfide tethering. This technique uses sU metabolic labeling to provide sites for reversible and covalent attachment of small molecule disulfides to the transcriptome. By screening under reducing conditions, we identify interactions that are stabilized by binding over those driven by the reactivity of the RNA sites.