Citation

BibTex format

@article{Symes:2024:10.1021/jacs.4c14164,
author = {Symes, OL and Ishikura, H and Begg, CS and Rojas, JJ and Speller, HA and Cherk, AM and Fang, M and Leung, D and Croft, RA and Higham, JI and Huang, K and Barnard, A and Haycock, P and White, AJP and Choi, C and Bull, JA},
doi = {10.1021/jacs.4c14164},
journal = {Journal of the American Chemical Society},
title = {Harnessing oxetane and azetidine sulfonyl fluorides for opportunities in drug discovery},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c14164},
year = {2024}
}

RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB - Four-membered heterocycles such as oxetanes and azetidines represent attractive and emergent design options in medicinal chemistry due to their small and polar nature and potential to significantly impact the physiochemical properties of drug molecules. The challenging preparation of these derivatives, especially in a divergent manner, has severely limited their combination with other medicinally and biologically important groups. Consequently, there is a substantial demand for mild and effective synthetic strategies to access new oxetane and azetidine derivatives and molecular scaffolds. Here, we report the development and use of oxetane sulfonyl fluorides (OSFs) and azetidine sulfonyl fluorides (ASFs), which behave as precursors to carbocations in an unusual defluorosulfonylation reaction pathway (deFS). The small-ring sulfonyl fluorides are activated under mild thermal conditions (60 °C), and the generated reactive intermediates couple with a broad range of nucleophiles. Oxetane and azetidine heterocyclic, -sulfoximine, and -phosphonate derivatives are prepared, several of which do not have comparable carbonyl analogs, providing new chemical motifs and design elements for drug discovery. Alternatively, a SuFEx pathway under anionic conditions accesses oxetane-sulfur(VI) derivatives. We demonstrate the synthetic utility of novel OSF and ASF reagents through the synthesis of 11 drug analogs, showcasing their potential for subsequent diversification and facile inclusion into medicinal chemistry programs. Moreover, we propose the application of the OSF and ASF reagents as linker motifs and demonstrate the incorporation of pendant groups suitable for common conjugation reactions. Productive deFS reactions with E3 ligase recruiters such as pomalidomide and related derivatives provide new degrader motifs and potential PROTAC linkers.
AU - Symes,OL
AU - Ishikura,H
AU - Begg,CS
AU - Rojas,JJ
AU - Speller,HA
AU - Cherk,AM
AU - Fang,M
AU - Leung,D
AU - Croft,RA
AU - Higham,JI
AU - Huang,K
AU - Barnard,A
AU - Haycock,P
AU - White,AJP
AU - Choi,C
AU - Bull,JA
DO - 10.1021/jacs.4c14164
PY - 2024///
SN - 0002-7863
TI - Harnessing oxetane and azetidine sulfonyl fluorides for opportunities in drug discovery
T2 - Journal of the American Chemical Society
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c14164
UR - https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c14164
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/116528
ER -

Contact

Dr Anna Barnard
Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale Fellow

Department of Chemistry

Imperial College London

Wood Lane

London W12 0BZ

a.barnard@imperial.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 8551