In the absence of a photocatalyst and other additives, the radical arylation of diverse arenes and heteroarenes has been achieved with aryldiazonium salts under visible-light irradiation from a blue light-emitting diode (LED). Although the course of some reactions can be rationalized by the formation of strongly light-absorbing charge-transfer (CT) complexes between the diazonium ion and the aromatic substrate, several further examples indicated that the simple presence of an aromatic substrate, showing only weak interactions to the diazonium ion, is fully sufficient to enable product formation.

Overexpression of the histone lysine demethylase KDM4A, which regulates H3K9 and H3K36 methylation states, has been related to the pathology of several human cancers. We found that a previously reported hydroxamate-based histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor (SW55) was also able to weakly inhibit this demethylase with an IC50 value of 25.4 μm. Herein we report the synthesis and biochemical evaluations, with two orthogonal in vitro assays, of a series of derivatives of this lead structure. With extensive chemical modifications on the lead structure, also by exploiting the versatility of the radical arylation with aryldiazonium salts, we were able to increase the potency of the derivatives against KDM4A to the low-micromolar range and, more importantly, to obtain demethylase selectivity with respect to HDACs. Cell-permeable derivatives clearly showed a demethylase-inhibition-dependent antiproliferative effect against HL-60 human promyelocytic leukemia cells.

The titanium(III)-mediated radical arylation of 3-hydroxypyridines was found to proceed with high regioselectivity for the 2-position. Using aryldiazonium chlorides, which were prepared from the corresponding anilines, as aryl radical sources, a range of 3-hydroxy-2-phenylpyridines were obtained in moderate to good yields under simple reaction conditions. Reactions of ortho-carboxylic ester substituted phenyldiazonium salts directly provided tricyclic benzopyranopyridinones.

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Aryl radicals generated in the aqueous phase of biphasic mixtures haveregardless of a comparably low polarity a strong preference to react with aromatic substrates in the aqueous phase and not to undergo phase-transfer into a lipophilic phase, independent from the presence of a surfactant. These results represent an important prerequisite toward future studies in biological systems, which typically consist of various compartments of either hydrophilic or lipophilic character.