Palladium-Catalyzed Carbonylation and Arylation Reactions

Palladium-catalyzed reactions have found widespread use in contemporary organic chemistry due to their impressive range of functional group tolerance and high chemo- and regioselectivity. The pioneering contributions to the development of the Pd-catalyzed C-C bond forming cross-coupling reaction were rewarded with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2010. Today, this is a rapidly growing field, and the development of novel methods, as well as the theoretical understanding of the various processes involved are of immense importance for continued progress in this field. The aim of the work presented in this thesis was to develop novel palladium(0)- and palladium(II)-catalyzed reactions. The work involved in achieving this aim led to the development of a Mo(CO)6-mediated carbonylative Stille cross coupling reaction for the preparation of various deoxybenzoins. The protocol utilized convenient gas-free conditions to facilitate the carbonylative coupling of benzyl bromides and chlorides with aryl and heteroaryl stannanes. Mo(CO)6-assisted conditions were then used in the development of a general protocol suitable for the aminocarbonylation of aryl triflates. Both electron-poor and electron-rich triflates were coupled with primary, secondary and aryl amines. In addition, DMAP was found to be a beneficial additive when using sterically hindered or poorly nucleophilic amines. An efficient and convenient method for the synthesis of styrenes from arylboranes was developed, employing the relatively inexpensive vinyl acetate as the ethene source under Pd(II)-catalyzed conditions. The reaction mechanism was studied using ESI-MS, and a plausible catalytic cycle was proposed. A method for the oxidative Heck reaction employing aryltrifluoroborates and aryl MIDA boronates was also developed. Electron-rich and electron-poor olefins were regioselectively arylated under microwave-assisted conditions. Various arylboron species were identified in an ongoing reaction using ESI-MS.    Further investigations led to the development of a direct method for the synthesis of arylamidines from aryltrifluoroborates and cyanamides. Under Pd(II)-catalyzed conditions it was possible to insert the aryl into primary, secondary and tertiary cyanamides. Finally, a desulfitative method for the synthesis of aryl ketones was developed. A variety of aryl sulfinates were effectively inserted into alkyl- and aryl nitriles. The mechanism was further investigated using ESI-MS and a plausible catalytic cycle was proposed

Structural Basis of Inhibition of Human Insulin-Regulated Aminopeptidase (IRAP) by Aryl Sulfonamides

The insulin-regulated aminopeptidase (IRAP) is a membrane-bound zinc metallopeptidase with many important regulatory functions. It has been demonstrated that inhibition of IRAP by angiotensin IV (Ang IV) and other peptides, as well as more druglike inhibitors, improves cognition in several rodent models. We recently reported a series of aryl sulfonamides as small-molecule IRAP inhibitors and a promising scaffold for pharmacological intervention. We have now expanded with a number of derivatives, report their stability in liver microsomes, and characterize the activity of the whole series in a new assay performed on recombinant human IRAP. Several compounds, such as the new fluorinated derivative <b>29</b>, present submicromolar affinity and high metabolic stability. Starting from the two binding modes previously proposed for the sulfonamide scaffold, we systematically performed molecular dynamics simulations and binding affinity estimation with the linear interaction energy method for the full compound series. The significant agreement with experimental affinities suggests one of the binding modes, which was further confirmed by the excellent correlation for binding affinity differences between the selected pair of compounds obtained by rigorous free energy perturbation calculations. The new experimental data and the computationally derived structure–activity relationship of the sulfonamide series provide valuable information for further lead optimization of novel IRAP inhibitors