Recent progress in the synthesis of oxepanes and medium ring ethers

Over the last decade, Diversity-Oriented Synthesis (DOS) has become a new paradigm for developing large collections of structurally diverse small molecules as probes to investigate biological pathways, and to provide a larger array of the chemical space. Drug discovery and chemical biology are taking advantage of DOS approaches to exploit highly-diverse and complex molecular platforms, producing advances in both target and ligand discovery. In this view, carbohydrates are attractive building blocks for DOS libraries, due to their stereochemical diversity and high density of polar functional groups, thus offering many possibilities for chemical manipulation and scaffold decoration. This review will discuss research contributions and perspectives on the application of carbohydrate chemistry to explore the accessible chemical space through appendage, stereochemical and scaffold diversity.

Carbohydrates in diversity-oriented synthesis: challenges and opportunities

Novel substrates that combine dicobalt hexacarbonyl propargyl (Nicholas) and pyranose-derived allylic (Ferrier) cations have been generated by treatment of hexacarbonyldicobalt (C-1)-alkynyl glycals with BF3 (.) Et2 O. The study of these cations has resulted in the discovery of novel reaction pathways that have shown to be associated to the nature of O-6 substituent in the starting alkynyl glycals. Accordingly, compounds resulting from ring expansion (oxepanes), ring contraction (tetrahydrofurans), or branched pyranoses, by incorporation of nucleophiles, can be obtained from 6-O-benzyl, 6-hydroxy, or 6-O-silyl derivatives, respectively. The use of a 6-O-allyl alkynyl glycal led to a suitable funtionalized oxepane able to experience an intramolecular Pauson-Khand cyclization leading to a single tricyclic derivative.

A substrate-based approach to skeletal diversity from dicobalt hexacarbonyl (C1)-alkynyl glycals by exploiting its combined Ferrier-Nicholas reactivity.

Daniel Pérez de las Vacas

Papers

Formation and reactivity of new Nicholas–Ferrier pyranosidic cations: novel access to oxepanes via a 1,6-hydride shift/cyclization sequence