Nabin Ch. Maity

Influence of chirality of V(V) Schiff base complexes on DNA, BSA binding and cleavage activity.

New chiral V(V) Schiff base complexes (S)-[VO(OMe)L] and (R)-[VO(OMe)L] were synthesized and characterized by microanalysis, infrared (IR), UV-Visible, Circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy and single crystal X-ray studies. The interaction of these complexes with calf thymus (CT) DNA and bovine serum albumin (BSA) protein showed chiral expression DNA/protein binding strength. The influence of chirality was also observed in cytotoxicity assay of Hep 2 cells. (R)-[VO(OMe)L] enantiomer exhibited higher binding constant (5 ± 1 × 10(5) M(-1)) as compared to (S)-[VO(OMe)L] (8 ± 1 × 10(4) M(-1)). The fluorescence quenching, thermal melting and viscosity data suggest DNA surface and/or groove binding nature of the complexes and electrophoresis studies also showed greater activity for (R)-[VO(OMe)L] in cleaving DNA and protein as against (S)-[VO(OMe)L].

Manganese complexes with non-porphyrin N4 ligands as recyclable catalyst for the asymmetric epoxidation of olefins

New chiral manganese complexes of N4 ligands derived from 2-acetylpyridine were prepared and used as catalysts in the enantioselective epoxidation of olefins, using H2O2 as an oxidant to give epoxides, with excellent conversions (up to 99%) and enantiomeric excess (up to 88%) within 1 h at 0 °C. A detailed mechanistic study was undertaken based on the information obtained by single crystal X-ray, optical rotation, UV-Vis, CD spectra and kinetic studies, and revealed that the reaction is first order with respect to the concentration of catalyst and oxidant and independent of substrate concentration. The complex (0.1 mol%) was successfully subjected to recyclability experiments over 3 cycles in the epoxidation of styrene with H2O2 as an oxidant and acetic acid as an additive at 0 °C with retention of performance.

Oxazoline derivatives tagged with tosylated amino acids as recyclable organocatalysts for enantioselective allylation of aldehydes

A series of amino acid-based oxazoline compounds have been prepared and successfully applied to the enantioselective allylation reaction of aldehydes. The fine-tuning of the structure of the oxazolines led to (S,S)-4 as an efficient organocatalyst which gave homoallyl alcohols in good yield (up to 90%) and excellent ee (up to 99%) for a wide range of substrates including aromatic, hetero-aromatic and α,β-unsaturated aldehydes. The chiral organocatalyst was synthesized in three easy steps with an overall 88% yield and successfully recycled for up to three cycles. On the basis of the experimental observations and NMR studies, a probable mechanism was proposed for this reaction.