1,2,4-Trisubstituted-(1 H )-imidazoles have been synthesized by the Cu(OTf) 2 - and I 2 -catalyzed unusual C–C bond cleavage of chalcones and benzylamines. After the α,β-unsaturated C–C bond cleavage, the β-portion is eliminated from the reaction. Various aryl- and heteroaryl-substituted chalcones and benzylamines were well tolerated in this unusual transformation to yield the trisubstituted-(1 H )-imidazoles.

Obesity contributes to the genesis of many metabolic disorders including dyslipidemia, coronary heart disease (CHD), nonalcoholic fatty liver, type 2 diabetes, etc. Pancreatic lipase plays a vital role in food fat digestion and absorption. Therefore, to control obesity, inhibition of pancreatic lipase is the active therapy. Thus, novel natural product derived labdane appended triazoles with pancreatic lipase inhibition potential were designed and synthesized. Among these hybrids, and exhibited excellent inhibitory activity (IC 0.75 ± 0.02 μM and 0.77 ± 0.01 μM), slightly better than that of the positive control Orlistat (IC 0.8 ± 0.03 μM). Compounds ,, and - inhibited the PL comparable to that of positive control. Interestingly none of the compounds showed cytotoxicity (Hep G2) in the concentration range from 0.5 to 100 μM. Overall results reveal the potential of labdane appended triazoles as antiobesity agents.

Amines are ubiquitous in biological world, but are toxic and harmful in nature. Detection of biogenic amines that are released from spoiled seafood, meat, or dairy products is an important task to maintain the quality and safety of these packaged foods. To this endeavor, herein we report pyrylium salts that are capable of sensing various amines by rapid change of fluorescence color or intensity. In molecular level, this change of fluorescence is rooted to the formation of pyridine or analogous product that have distinct optical property. The pyrylium salts are capable of efficiently sensing amine vapors or amine solutions both in solid state and in solution state and thus demonstrating a multiphase sensing platform. Utilizing the excellent sensing property, we have employed our pyrylium compounds as spoilage indicator for food products such as fish, meat or cheese which relies on sensing biogenic amines released from these spoiled foods and provide optical response. Prominent change in visible and luminescence color was observed within 4− 18 h of packaging at room temperature (∼33 °C). Considering the rapid response for biogenic amines, these molecular sensors have great potential to be utilized for food packaging industry, medical diagnostics, or other sensory devices.