Combining Sanford Arylations on Benzodiazepines with the Nuisance Effect.

5-Phenyl-1,3-dihydro--1,4-benzodiazepin-2-ones react under palladium- and visible light photoredox catalysis, in refluxing methanol, with aryldiazonium salts to afford the respective 5-(2-arylphenyl) analogues. With 2- or 4-fluorobenzenediazonium derivatives, both fluoroaryl- and methoxyaryl- products were obtained, the latter resulting from a SAr on the fluorobenzenediazonium salt ("nuisance effect"). A computational DFT analysis of the palladium-catalysed and the palladium/ruthenium-photocalysed mechanism for the functionalization of benzodiazepines indicated that, in the presence of the photocatalyst, the reaction proceeds via a low-energy SET pathway avoiding the high-energy oxidative addition step in the palladium-only catalysed reaction pathway.

Gram-Scale Laboratory Synthesis of TC AC 28, a High-Affinity BET Bromodomain Ligand.

, 6-(1-Indol-4-yl)-8-methoxy-1-methyl-4-[1,2,4]triazolo[4,3-][1,4]benzodiazepine-4-acetic acid methyl ester, has been synthesized on a near-gram scale in seven steps with notable improvements in the reported poor-yielding last two steps enabling this key chemical probe compound to be available for researchers.