Miguel Garcia-Castro

Scaffold Diversity Synthesis and Its Application in Probe and Drug Discovery

Scaffold diversity is a crucial feature of compound collections that has a huge impact on their success in biological screenings. The synthesis of highly complex and diverse scaffolds, which could be based on natural products, for example, is an arduous task that requires expertise in various aspects of organic synthesis and structural analysis. This challenge has been addressed by a number of synthesis designs, which employ natural products as a source of scaffold diversity, transform suitably designed common intermediates into various molecular frameworks, or entail highly concise synthetic routes to a number of distinct and complex scaffolds. In this Minireview, we highlight recent synthetic developments towards the construction of diverse and complex scaffolds and the application of the resulting compound collections in drug and probe discovery.

Cyclic sulfur ylides derived from Gleason-type chiral auxiliaries for the asymmetric synthesis of epoxy amides.

Gleason-type chiral auxiliaries were used for the synthesis of a novel class of sulfonium salts, obtained via methylation of the sulfide with Meerweins salt. The salts were reacted with aldehydes under basic conditions to provide epoxy amides, which were reduced to their corresponding epoxy alcohols in excellent enantiomeric excesses. Interestingly, it was feasible to synthesize both enantiomeric epoxy alcohols depending on which of the sulfonium salts, prepared from L-amino acids (6 and 9 from L-valine or 15 and 16 from L-serine) was employed.

L-Isoleucine derived bifunctional phosphine catalyses asymmetric [3 + 2]-annulation of allenyl-esters and -ketones with ketimines

The zwitterionic 1,3-dipoles generated by the addition of a bifunctional L-isoleucine derived N-acylaminophosphine to allenic esters as well as ketones were successfully trapped with isatin derived ketimines in a [3 + 2]-annulation reaction to deliver 3,2′-dihydropyrrolyl spirooxindoles in high yields (up to 88%) and with excellent enantioselectivities (up to >99%). The asymmetric annulation reaction provides a facile access to biologically relevant small molecules embodying the natural product spirocyclic core.

Epoxyamide-based strategy for the synthesis of polypropionate-type frameworks.

A new approach to the stereoselective synthesis of polypropionate-type frameworks is reported utilizing reactions of amide-stabilized sulfur ylides with chiral aldehydes. To establish a new strategy for macrolide fragment synthesis, the stereoselectivity of these reactions in the construction of epoxy amides was the most important aspect of this study. In this aspect, we found a strong influence of the protecting groups employed in the starting aldehydes upon the stereochemical outcome of their reactions with the sulfur ylide 1. Thus, numerous aldehydes showed remarkable stereofacial differentiation, providing a major diastereoisomer, in contrast to others that displayed a poor or no stereoselectivity. Despite the difficulties encountered for some cases with respect to their diastereomeric yields, we were able to prepare various stereotetrads and stereopentads, thus enhancing the synthetic value of this new methodology for the preparation of typical polypropionate frameworks found in many natural products, in particular the macrolide class of antibiotics.