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Rational design of efficient chiral lithium amides for enantioselective deprotonations demands understanding of the origin of the selectivity. The mechanism of deprotonation of cyclohexene oxide 1 by lithium (1R,2S )-N-methyl-1phenyl-2-pyrrolidinylpropanamide 3, which yields (S )-cyclohex-2-en-1-ol (S )-5 in 93% enantiomeric excess in tetrahydrofuran (THF ), has been investigated. Kinetics have been used to show that the reaction is first order with respect to the reagents 1 and 3, respectively. NMR investigations of a 6 Li and 15 N labelled isotopologue of 3 have previously shown that 3 is mainly a dimer of the lithium amide monomer in THF in the initial state. On the basis of these results it is concluded that the rate-limiting activated complexes for the epoxide deprotonation are composed of two molecules of monomer of lithium amide 3 and one molecule of epoxide. Structures and energies of unsolvated and specific THF-solvated reagents and activated complexes have been calculated using PM3 and B3LYP/6-31+G(d).The results are currently being explored for the rational design of chiral lithium amides with improved stereoselectivities.

A useful and efficient synthetic strategy to 2,3,6,8-tetrasubstituted chromone derivatives has been developed. 2-Aryl/styryl-8-bromo-6-chloro-3-hydroxychromone derivatives were synthesized and used as scaffolds by introducing a variety of substituents in the 3-, 6-, and 8-positions using palladium-mediated reactions. Excellent regioselectivity in all positions could be obtained by performing reactions in the 8-position first, in which Stille, Heck, Suzuki, and Sonogashira reactions gave good to excellent yields of product (63-98%). Stille and Heck reactions in the 6-position also gave the desired products in good yields (64-86%). The hydroxy group in the 3-position was activated as a triflate and used in productive Stille reactions (63-94%). This hydroxyl group was also used in O-alkylation reactions with different functionalized alkyl bromides (57-88%). The flavonoids, which are based on the chromone structure, and other related ring systems, have several interesting biological activities. The chromones are also interesting structural scaffolds, and they have for example been designed to be used as mimetics of short peptides. The versatile applicability of chromone derivatives and especially their potential use in drug discovery implicates the importance of access to efficient synthetic routes to such compounds.

We present the synthesis and photophysical characterisation of a series of structurally diverse, fluorescent 2,6,8-trisubstituted 3-hydroxychromone derivatives with high fluorescence quantum yields and molar extinction coefficients. Two of these derivatives (9 and 10 a) have been studied as fluorophores for cellular imaging in HeLa cells and show excellent permeability and promising fluorescence properties in a cellular environment. In addition, we have demonstrated by photophysical characterisation of 3-isobutyroxychromone derivatives that esterification of the 3-hydroxyl group results in acceptable and useful fluorescence properties.

[reaction: see text] An efficient synthetic route to Cbz-protected 3-aminomethyl-2-aryl-8-bromo-6-chlorochromones has been developed. 3-Aryl-1-(3-bromo-5-chloro-2-hydroxyphenyl)-2-propen-1-one or 2-aryl-8-bromo-6-chlorochroman-4-one could be reacted under Mannich conditions yielding 2-aryl-8-bromo-6-chloro-3-methylenechroman-4-one, which was further converted to the target compound via an aza-Michael reaction followed by an SeO(2) oxidation. This procedure represents a new method to introduce a primary aminomethyl group at the 3-position of a 2-arylchromone scaffold. The Cbz-protected 3-aminomethyl-2-aryl-8-bromo-6-chlorochromones can, e.g., be used in the synthesis of chromone-based beta-turn peptidomimetics.