Dihydropyrazine derivatives (DHPs) derived from dimerization of amino sugars, such as glucosamine and mannosamine, spontaneously generate carbon-centered radicals and exhibit DNA strand-breaking activity, which may be related to the apoptotic activity of amino sugars.1,2) The DHP derivative 3,6-dihydropyrazine-2,5-dipropionic acid is formed by dimerization of 5-aminolevulic acid, which is accumulated in congenital and acquired hepatic porphyrias, such as acute intermittent porphyria, and might induce hepatocellular carcinoma.3) The dimerization of these aaminocarbonyl compounds proceeds via a non-enzymatic process under physiological conditions to afford 2,5-DHPs initially, and these might be isomerized to other types of DHPs as a consequence of resonance stabilization, and/or oxidized to pyrazines. However, the thermal and chemical instability of DHPs has made it difficult to investigate their chemical properties and biological functions in detail.Previously we reported the preparation of simple DHP derivatives such as 5,6-dimethyl-2,3-DHP (1) and 2,2,5,6-tetramethyl-2,3-DHP (2) by the reaction of diacetyl and ethylenediamines in diethyl ether according to Ishiguro's procedure (Chart 1).4) These methyl-substituted DHPs showed DNA strand-breaking activity with potency comparable to that of DHP formed from D-glucosamine.5) During mechanistic investigations, we found that compound 2 dimerized at room temperature without any catalyst.6,7) Semi-empirical PM3 molecular orbital (MO) calculation suggested the feasibility of tautomerization from 2 (diimine form) to 2exo (enamine form) during the dimerization reaction. Further, from a biological viewpoint, the reduction of Koopman's ionization potential value (IPϭϪE HOMO ) resulting from tautomerization of DHPs to the enamine form should be closely related to the DNA-damaging ability. 8) However, there is no evidence for the formation of an enamine moiety, such as 1exo and 2exo. In this study, we explored the possible formation of enamine tautomers of DHPs by means of theoretical and empirical methods.
ExperimentalComputation The Spartan '06 and '08 for Windows software 9) with the density functional theory (DFT) B3LYP 10 /6-311ϩG** basis set was employed to estimate the global minimum energy of the optimized structures of compounds and transition states (TS). Zero point energy was not corrected. The obtained TS geometry was evaluated by means of vibrational frequency analysis and intrinsic reaction coordinate (IRC) calculation. The solvation effect of water was approximated by way of the SM8 model 11 at the DFT B3LYP/6-31G* basis set level, because the SM8 model did not cover 6-311ϩG** basis set.Experimental All chemicals were available in commercial. Phenyl propane-1,2-dione, N-methyl ethylenediamine and phenyl isocyanate were purchased from Tokyo Chemical Industry Co., Ltd., ethylenediamine and acetonitrile were from Kanto Chemical Co., Inc. Deuterium oxide and pyridine-d 5 were also purchased from CEA, and DMSO-d 6 was from Isotec Inc. Melting points were measured wi...