This study describes a new class of carbohydrate-binding boronic acids. ortho-Hydroxymethyl phenylboronic acid (boronophthalide) was shown to be superior to the well-established dialkylamino ("Wulff-type") analogues, and it is more soluble in aqueous solvents. The most significant finding in this work is the surprising ability of ortho-hydroxyalkyl arylboronic acids to complex model glycopyranosides under physiologically relevant conditions. These boronic acid units appear to complex hexopyranosides mainly using their 4,6-diol. This behavior is significant because a majority of cell-surface glycoconjugates present free 4,6-diols. Thus, conjugatable forms of these boronic acids could be used in the design of oligomeric receptors and sensors to exploit multivalency effects. Such receptors could dramatically expand the potential of boronic acids toward the selective recognition of cell-surface glycoconjugates.

In contrast to normal boronic acids, o-hydroxymethyl phenylboronic acid (benzoboroxole) has the capability of complexing glycopyranosides efficiently in neutral water. The measurement of association constants with a panel of model hexopyranosides indicates that the preferred mode of binding is through a cis-3,4-diol, such as that found in galactopyranosides, and mass spectrometric studies support a 1:1 binding stoichiometry. The complexation of glucopyranosides is weaker, and they are bound through their 4,6-diol unit. Although several factors may explain the exceptional carbohydrate-binding behavior of this class of hemiboronic acids, the relatively high Lewis acidity of benzoboroxoles is a likely contributing factor along with subtle factors such as intramolecular hydrogen bonds with other hydroxyl groups in the resulting anionic complex. These results with hexopyranosides suggest that biologically relevant cell-surface oligosaccharides could be targeted in water using oligomeric benzoboroxole receptors.

The reactivity of Pd-PEPPSI (Pyridine, Enhanced, Precatalyst, Preparation, Stabilization, and Initiation) precatalysts in the Stille-Migita cross-coupling reaction between heteroaryl stannanes and aryl or heteroaryl halides was evaluated. In general, Pd-PEPPSI-IPent (IPent=diisopentylphenylimidazolium derivative) demonstrated high efficiency over a variety of challenging aryl or heteroaryl halides with thiophene-, furan-, pyrrole-, and thiazole-based organostannanes when compared with Pd-PEPPSI-IPr (IPr=diisopropylphenylimidazolium derivative). The transformations proceeded at appreciably lower temperatures (30-80 degrees C) than triarylphosphine-based Pd catalysts, improving the scope of this useful carbon-carbon bond-forming process.

[structure: see text] Carbohydrates play an important role in life processes, and combinatorial chemistry can provide useful sources of thousands of synthetic carbohydrates as potential ligands for biological receptors. To accelerate the detection of positive hits arising from specific interactions between a carbohydrate and a protein, the use of fluorescent dyes can serve as a reliable detecting tool. A study of labeled carbohydrates to lectins conjugated to a solid-support shows that succinimidyl 6-(N-(7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diazol-4-yl)amino)hexanoate (NBD-X) dye provides by far the lowest level of nonspecific interaction with immobilized protein. This observation is in stark contrast with the commonly used labeling reagents constituted of charged and aromatic groups, for instance, FITC and TAMRA dyes.

Condensation of bis(2-aminophenyl)disulphide with aromatic aldehydes yielded the corresponding dithiophenyldiimines. Dinuclear ruthenium complexes were obtained by reacting the diimines (9) [bis(2-hydroxybenzaldehyde)-phenyldisulphide diimine], with RuCl 3 in the presence of L (L ¼ 2,2 0 -bipyridine, 1,10-phenanthroline, 3,4-diaminotoluene, pyridine and PPh 3 ) in EtOH. The two metal centres, connected through bridging chlorides, are in octahedral environments with one metal centre coordinated to sulphur and water while the other is coordinated to L.