No abstract

No abstract

The synthesis of the chiral, nonracemic 3-aryl piperidine, OSU 6162 (1), a potential CNS agent from Pharmacia Corporation, is presented. The key construction in the described synthesis is a palladium-catalyzed aryl cross-coupling reaction between bromosulfone (4) and pyridyl borane (14). Initially developed conditions for this Suzuki reaction, conducted in tetrahydrofuran/aqueous hydroxide, delivered free base (6) or hydrochloride salt (15a) in reproducible 80% yield. However, by changing the solvent to toluene and the base to carbonate, significant decreases in catalyst requirement were realized, and the methane sulfonate salt (15b) of the coupled product could be obtained in reproducible 92-94% yield on 200-kg input. The success of the Suzuki reaction was critically dependent on a bulk source of the pyridyl borane coupling partner. Cryogenic conditions were developed for its generation via lithiumhalogen exchange to generate thermally labile 3-lithiopyridine followed by transmetalation with diethylmethoxy borane. This highly exothermic series of transformations yielded crystalline diethyl-3-pyridyl borane in reproducible 75-80% yield on scales ranging up to 200-kg input. Selective reduction of the biaryl, classical resolution and introduction of the propyl group via the Gribble reductive amination procedure completed the synthesis of OSU 6162 free base. This route was employed to deliver over 35 kg of clinical-quality bulk drug in short order.

The imidazoquinoline (R)-5,6-Dihydro-N,N-dimethyl-4H-imidazo[4,5,1-ij]quinolin-5-amine [(R)-3] is a potent dopamine agonist when tested in animals but surprisingly shows very low affinity in in vitro binding assays. When incubated with mouse or monkey liver S9 microsomes, (R)-3 is metabolized by N-demethylation and oxidation to (R)-5,6-dihydro-5-(methylamino)-4H-imidazo[4,5,1-ij]quinolin-2(1H) -one [(R)-6], intermediate metabolites, where N-demethylation to the imidazoquinoline (R)-4 and where oxidation to the imidazoquinolinone (R)-5 has taken place, are also observed in these incubates. A cross-species study on the metabolism of (R)-3 in vitro has shown large variations in the extent of metabolism from species to species. Imidazoquinolinones (R)-5 and (R)-6 have comparable activity to (R)-3 in animals and also show good dopaminergic (D2) and serotonergic (5HT1A) activities in binding assays. It is probable that these metabolites account at least in part for the in vivo activity found for (R)-3. Efficient syntheses for compounds 3-6 as single enantiomers from quinoline are presented together with information on the biological activities and metabolic stabilities of these compounds.

Three distinct chemical classes for the control of gastrointestinal nematodes are available: benzimidazoles, imidazothiazoles, and macrocyclic lactones. The relentless development of drug resistance has severely limited the usefulness of such drugs and the search for a new class of compounds preferably with a different mode of action is an important endeavor. Marcfortine A (1), a metabolite of Penicillium roqueforti, is structurally related to paraherquamide A (2), originally isolated from Penicillium paraherquei. Chemically the two compounds differ only in one ring; in marcfortine A, ring G is six-membered and carries no substituents, while in paraherquamide A, ring G is five-membered with methyl and hydroxyl substituents at C14. Paraherquamide A (2) is superior to marcfortine A as a nematocide. 2-Desoxoparaherquamide A (PNU-141962, 53) has excellent nematocidal activity, a superior safely profile, and is the first semi-synthetic member of this totally new class of nematocides that is a legitimate candidate for development. This review describes the chemistry, efficacy and mode of action of PNU-141962.