Bromination is one of the most important transformations in organic synthesis and can be carried out using bromine and many other bromo compounds. Use of molecular bromine in organic synthesis is well-known. However, due to the hazardous nature of bromine, enormous growth has been witnessed in the past several decades for the development of solid bromine carriers. This review outlines the use of bromine and different bromo-organic compounds in organic synthesis. The applications of bromine, a total of 107 bromo-organic compounds, 11 other brominating agents, and a few natural bromine sources were incorporated. The scope of these reagents for various organic transformations such as bromination, cohalogenation, oxidation, cyclization, ring-opening reactions, substitution, rearrangement, hydrolysis, catalysis, etc. has been described briefly to highlight important aspects of the bromo-organic compounds in organic synthesis.

Use of Bromine and Bromo-Organic Compounds in Organic Synthesis

The invention provides a novel class of compounds of formula 1, pharmaceutical compositions comprising such compounds and methods of using such compounds to treat or prevent diseases or disorders associated with abnormal or deregulated kinase activity, particularly diseases or disorders that involve abnormal activation of B-Raf

Compounds and compositions as protein kinase inhibitors

The kinetics of the coupling of indole (1a), N-methylindole (1b), 5-methoxyindole (1c), and 5-cyanoindole (1d) with a set of reference benzhydryl cations have been investigated in acetonitrile and/or dichloromethane. The second-order rate constants for the reactions correlate linearly with the electrophilicity parameter E of the benzhydryl cations. This allows the determination of the reactivity parameters, N and s, characterizing the nucleophilicity of 1a−d according to the linear free enthalpy relationship log k(20 °C) = s(N + E) (Acc. Chem. Res. 2003, 36, 66). The nucleophilicity parameters thus defined describe nicely the reactions of 1a−d with 4,6-dinitrobenzofuroxan (2), a neutral superelectrophilic heteroaromatic whose electrophilicity (E) has been recently determined. On this ground, the kinetics of the coupling of 2 with a large variety of indole structures have been studied in acetonitrile, leading to a ranking of this family of π-excessive carbon nucleophiles over a large domain of the nucleoph...

Nucleophilic reactivities of indoles.

The Tautomerism of Heterocycles: Five-membered Rings with Two or More Heteroatoms

Recent advances in atropisomerism

The tautomerism of some substituted 2-hydroxypyridines is investigated by UV/Vis- and 1 H-, and 13 C- NMR spectroscopic methods, with the aid of the N-Me and O-Me fixed parents. NMR spectroscopic data do not allow discrimination between the two tautomeric forms (with the exception of the unsubstituted 2-hydroxypyridine), while UV/Vis- data permit the quantitative determination, in different solvents, of the amounts of the two forms. The electronic substituent effect and the change of solvent are discussed. An X-Ray diffraction study carried out on a crystal of 2-hydroxy-5-nitropyridine (7) reveals that this compound, in the solid state, is in the oxo-form.

Reinvestigation of the tautomerism of some substituted 2-hydroxypyridines

Evidence for Carbon–Carbon Meisenheimer–Wheland Complexes between Superelectrophilic and Supernucleophilic Carbon Reagents

The reactions of ketones and N-substituted thioureas, in the presence of HCl (or HBr) and DMSO afford mixtures of the title compounds which are easily separated on a silica gel column. This method avoids the classical use of α-haloketones. The mechanism of these reactions involves the enolization of ketones and the activation of thiourea sulfur, probably by oxygen transfer from DMSO.

Condensation of thiourea derivatives with carbonyl compounds: one-pot synthesis of N-alkyl-1,3-thiazol-2-amines and of 3-alkyl-1,3-thiazolimines

The reactions of 2-aminothiazole (1a), 4-methyl-2-aminothiazole (1b), and 4,5-dimethyl-2-aminothiazole (1c) with superelectrophilic 4,6-dinitrobenzofuroxan (DNBF) have been studied in acetonitrile and a 70/30 (v/v) H2O/Me2SO mixture. While exhibiting a somewhat higher nitrogen basicity than that of anilines, 1a and 1b do not react as nitrogen nucleophiles, affording exclusively anionic C-bonded sigma-adducts (C-1a and C-1b) through electrophilic S(E)Ar substitution of the thiazole ring by DNBF. Only in the case of the 4,5-dimethyl derivative 1c a N-adduct, N-1c, was obtained. On the basis of 1H-15N correlations, it is demonstrated that this adduct, N-1c;1c,H+, is derived from DNBF addition at the exocyclic amino group and not at the endocyclic nitrogen center of 1c. Rate constants have been determined in the two solvents for the formation of the adducts, revealing a reactivity sequence which accounts well for the finding that 1a and 1b behave preferentially as carbon rather than nitrogen nucleophiles. The enaminic character of these thiazoles is assessed through an estimation of the pKa values for their C-protonation in aqueous solution as well as through a positioning of their reactivity on the nucleophilicity scale recently developed by Mayr et al. (Acc. Chem. Res. 2003, 36, 66). With N values of the order of 6.80 and 5.56, 1b and 1a have a carbon nucleophilicity comparable to that of N-methylindole and indole, respectively.

Assessing the nitrogen and carbon nucleophilicities of 2-aminothiazoles through coupling with superelectrophilic 4,6-dinitrobenzofuroxan.

Reactions of DNBF with a series of 2-aminothiazoles (1 a–f) to afford thermodynamically stable C-bonded σ-adducts have been investigated in acetonitrile. A most significant finding emerged on recording NMR spectra immediately after mixing of equimolar amounts of DNBF and the unsubstituted 2-aminothiazole (1 a) in Me2SO: namely, that the formation of 9 a is preceded by that of a short-lived intermediate species X. From the 1H NMR parameters characterizing this intermediate, as well as the dependence of its lifetime on the experimental conditions—the presence of excess DNBF over 1 a increases the lifetime of X while an excess of base (1 a) accelerates its conversion into 9 a—it is convincingly demonstrated that the structure of X combines the presence of a positively charged Wheland complex moiety (with regard to the thiazole ring) with that of a negatively charged Meisenheimer complex moiety (with regard to the benzofuroxan system). So far, only one intermediate of this type (noted WM) has been successfully characterized, in the reactions of DNBF with 1,3,5-tris(N,N-dialkylamino)benzenes. Among the key features supporting the intermediacy of X along the reaction coordinate leading to 9 a is the fact that the reactions of DNBF with 1 a in the presence of an alcohol (MeOH, EtOH, nPrOH) produce new adducts arising from the addition of an alcohol molecule to the thiazole moiety of WM-1 a. Reflecting the presence of three chiral centres, these species are formed as mixtures of several diastereomers that could all be characterized in their racemic forms in ethanol. These findings generalize the previous report on the formation of Wheland–Meisenheimer carbon–carbon complexes in homocyclic series.

Luciano Forlani

Papers

Reinvestigation of the tautomerism of some substituted 2-hydroxypyridines

Evidence for Carbon–Carbon Meisenheimer–Wheland Complexes between Superelectrophilic and Supernucleophilic Carbon Reagents

Condensation of thiourea derivatives with carbonyl compounds: one-pot synthesis of N-alkyl-1,3-thiazol-2-amines and of 3-alkyl-1,3-thiazolimines

Assessing the nitrogen and carbon nucleophilicities of 2-aminothiazoles through coupling with superelectrophilic 4,6-dinitrobenzofuroxan.

Evidence for the Intermediacy of Wheland–Meisenheimer Complexes in SEAr Reactions of Aminothiazoles with 4,6-Dinitrobenzofuroxan