Bicyclic Sultams: From Organic Chemistry to Pharmaceutical Science

Abstract

Cyclic sulfonamides (sultams) widely distributed in pharmaceuticals due to their abundant biological activities. Currently, many pharmaceuticals with bicyclic sultam scaffold have been approved, some of them even have become first‐line medicines. In this concept, representative synthetic methodologies towards bicyclic sultams were selected and discussed. Construction of bicyclic γ‐ and δ‐sultams were the focus due to their pivotal role in medicinal chemistry. Most of the methodologies were focus on the construction of the sultam ring, including intramolecular N‐central cyclization (INC), oxidative cyclization (OC), carbanion‐mediated sulfonamide intramolecular cyclization (CSIC), transition‐metal catalyzed cyclization (TMCC) and ring closing metathesis (RCM). Name reactions such as Michael addition and Heck reaction were also applied to the construction of bicyclic sultams. In addition, this concept also discussed the enzyme‐catalytic reactions and some special reactions due to their unique properties.