Axially
chiral atropisomers have energetic barriers to rotation,
ΔG
rot, that prevent racemization
of the respective enantiomers. We used computational modeling to develop
a suite of 10 bio-inspired 1-aryl-β-carbolines with varying
ΔG
rot, from which a strong structure–activity
relationship was observed for 2-substituted-1-naphthyl substituents.
We then synthesized two of these atropisomers, 1d and 1f, by a four-step racemic synthesis and resolved the enantiomers
via chiral chromatography. Racemization studies revealed experimental
ΔG
rot values of 39.5 and 33.0 kcal/mol
for 1d and 1f, respectively, which were
consistent with our computational results. These atropisomers exhibited
long half-lives, which allowed for their physicochemical characterization
and stereochemical assignment via UV–vis spectroscopy, fluorescence
spectroscopy, electronic circular dichroism, and vibrational circular
dichroism.