Non-Tertiary Alkyl Substituents Enhance High-Temperature Radical Trapping by Phenothiazine and Phenoxazine Antioxidants

Radical-trapping antioxidants (RTAs) are an indispensable class of additive used to preserve hydrocarbon materials from oxidative degradation. Materials that are regularly subjected to elevated temperatures where autoxidation is self-initiated (i.e., >120 °C) require high concentrations of RTA for protection. Not only is this costly, but it can negatively impact material performance. Herein we show that inhibition of the autoxidation of a model hydrocarbon (n-hexadecane) by phenothiazine (PTZ) at ≥160 °C can be greatly enhanced by the incorporation of either 1° or 2° alkyl substituents in the 3- and/or 7-positions of the scaffold. Structure–reactivity studies, product analyses and computations suggest that this results from hydrogen atom transfer (HAT) from the benzylic carbon of these alkyl substituents in the PTZ-derived aminyl radical intermediate. The resultant iminoquinone methide can then undergo further radical-trapping reactions, depending on the nature of the alkyl substituent. Similar structure–reactivity relationships are observed for the phenoxazine (PNX) scaffold. These results not only have significant implications for the design and development of new high-temperature RTA technology, but also for understanding aminic RTA activity at elevated temperatures. Specifically, they suggest that a stoichiometric model better accounts for the RTA activity of aromatic amines in saturated hydrocarbons than the widely accepted catalytic model

Determination of Key Hydrocarbon Autoxidation Products by Fluorescence

Hydroperoxides and carboxylic acids are key primary products that arise in the autoxidation of hydrocarbons. We have developed a simple approach to rapidly and simultaneously determine both types of products using hydroperoxide- and acid-sensitive moieties conjugated to nonpolar coumarin- and BODIPY-based fluorophores. The coumarin- and BODIPY-conjugated amine probes described here undergo 38- and 8-fold enhancement, respectively, upon protonation in a solvent system compatible with heavy hydrocarbons. The latter can be used directly with our previously described hydroperoxide-sensitive coumarin-conjugated phosphine probe to enable rapid quantification of both carboxylic acids and hydroperoxides in hydrocarbon samples. The utility of the approach is illustrated by the ready determination of the differing relative rates of hydroperoxide and acid formation with changes in hydrocarbon structure (e.g., <i>n</i>-hexadecane vs 1-hexadecene vs a lubricant base stock). The method offers significant versatility and automation compared with common but laborious titration approaches, and greatly improves screening efficiency and accuracy for the identification of novel radical-trapping antioxidants for high temperature applications. This application was demonstrated by the automated analysis of hydroperoxides and carboxylic acids (by microplate reader) in samples from 24 inhibited autoxidations of a lubricating oil, which were carried out on a parallel synthesizer at 160 °C in triplicate in a single day

Peroxyesters As Precursors to Peroxyl Radical Clocks

The reactions of peroxyl radicals are at the center of the oxidative degradation of essentially all petroleum-derived hydrocarbons and biological lipids and consequently, the inhibition of these processes by radical-trapping antioxidants. Recently described peroxyl radical clocks offer a simple, convenient, and inexpensive method of determining rate constants for H-atom transfer reactions to peroxyl radicals, greatly enabling the kinetic and mechanistic characterization of compounds with antioxidant properties. We follow up our preliminary communication on the development of a methodology utilizing <i>tert</i>-butyl styrylperacetate as a precursor to a versatile peroxyl radical clock with the present paper, wherein we describe a novel naphthyl analogue, which provides for much improved product resolution for analysis, and provide the complete details associated with its development and application. Using this new precursor, and with consideration of the expanded set of reaction products, inhibition rate constants were measured for a variety of representative phenolic and diarylamine radical-trapping antioxidants. We also provide details for the use of this methodology for the determination of mechanistic information, such as kinetic solvent effects, Arrhenius parameters, and kinetic isotope effects

The Potency of Diarylamine Radical-Trapping Antioxidants as Inhibitors of Ferroptosis Underscores the Role of Autoxidation in the Mechanism of Cell Death

Two aromatic amines (ferrostatin-1 and liproxstatin-1) were recently identified from high-throughput screening efforts to uncover potent inhibitors of ferroptosis, the necrotic-like cell death induced by inhibition of glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4), deletion of the corresponding <i>gpx4</i> gene, or starvation of GPX4 of its reducing cosubstrate, glutathione (GSH). We have since demonstrated that these two aromatic amines are highly effective radical-trapping antioxidants (RTAs) in lipid bilayers, suggesting that they subvert ferroptosis by inhibiting lipid peroxidation (autoxidation) and, thus, that this process drives the execution of ferroptosis. Herein, we show that diarylamine RTAs used to protect petroleum-derived products from autoxidation can be potent inhibitors of ferroptosis. The diarylamines investigated include representative examples of additives to engine oils, greases and rubber (4,4′-dialkyldiphenylamines), core structures of dyes and pharmaceuticals (phenoxazines and phenothiazines), and aza-analogues of these three classes of compounds that we have recently shown can be modified to achieve much greater reactivity. We find that regardless of how ferroptosis is induced (GPX4 inhibition, <i>gpx4</i> deletion or GSH depletion), compounds which possess good RTA activity in organic solution (<i>k</i>_inh > 10⁵ M^–1 s^–1) and lipid bilayers (<i>k</i>_inh > 10⁴ M^–1 s^–1) are generally potent inhibitors of ferroptosis (in mouse embryonic fibroblasts). Likewise, structural analogs that do not possess RTA activity are devoid of antiferroptotic activity. These results further support the argument that lipid peroxidation (autoxidation) plays a major role in the mechanism of cell death induced by either GPX4 inhibition, <i>gpx4</i> deletion, or GSH depletion. Moreover, it offers clear direction that ongoing medicinal chemistry efforts on liproxstatin and ferrostatin derivatives, which have been proposed as lead compounds for the treatment and/or prevention of ischemia/reperfusion injury, renal failure, and neurodegeneration, can be widened to include other aminic RTAs. To aid in these efforts, some relevant structure–reactivity relationships are discussed

The Catalytic Mechanism of Diarylamine Radical-Trapping Antioxidants

Diarylamine radical-trapping antioxidants are important industrial additives, finding widespread use in petroleum-derived products. They are uniquely effective at elevated temperatures due to their ability to trap multiple radicals per molecule of diarylamine. Herein we report the results of computational and experimental studies designed to elucidate the mechanism of this remarkable activity. We find that the key step in the proposed catalytic cycle–decomposition of the alkoxyamine derived from capture of a substrate-derived alkyl radical with a diarylamine-derived nitroxide–proceeds by different mechanisms depending on the structure of both the substrate and the diarylamine. <i>N</i>,<i>N</i>-Diarylalkoxyamines derived from saturated substrates and diphenylamines decompose by N–O homolysis followed by disproportionation. Alternatively, those derived from unsaturated substrates and diphenylamines, or saturated substrates and <i>N</i>-phenyl-β-naphthylamine, decompose by an unprecedented concerted retro-carbonyl-ene reaction. The alkoxyamines that decompose by the concerted process inhibit hexadecane autoxidations at 160 °C to the same extent as the corresponding diarylamine, whereas those alkoxyamines that decompose by the N–O homolysis/disproportionation pathway are much less effective. This suggests that the competing cage escape of the alkoxyl radicals following N–O homolysis leads to significantly less effective regeneration of diarylamines and implies that the catalytic efficiency of diarylamine antioxidants is substrate-dependent. The results presented here have significant implications in the future design of antioxidant additives: diarylamines designed to yield intermediate alkoxyamines that undergo the retro-carbonyl-ene reaction are likely to be much more effective than existing compounds and will display catalytic radical-trapping activities at lower temperatures due to lower barriers to regeneration

Photocatalytic C–S Bond Formation Using <i>N</i>‑Thiophthalimide and <i>N-</i>Perthiophthalimide Derivatives

Unsymmetric disulfides are shown to be accessed directly from carboxylic acids or trifluoroborate salts by using N-perthiophthalimide derivatives (Harpp reagents) under photoredox catalysis. While this would appear to involve homolytic substitution of alkyl radicals on the Harpp reagents, the formation of the high-energy phthalimidyl radical renders this reaction prohibitively endergonic. Instead, computations and experiments suggest that the Harpp reagents are reduced in situ to form perthiyl radicals that dimerize to tetrasulfides (RSSSSR), which have previously been demonstrated to undergo radical substitution to give disulfides. Given these results, examples of previously reported radical sulfurations using N-thiophthalimide reagents under photoredox catalysis were investigated. Our results suggest that these reactions are likely to proceed via in situ formation of the corresponding disulfide as the sulfuration reagent rather than direct substitution on the N-thiophthalimide. The implications of these findings for the use of phthalimide (and related) derivatives in photoredox-catalyzed reactions are discussed

Resolving the Role of Lipoxygenases in the Initiation and Execution of Ferroptosis

Lipoxygenases (LOXs) have been implicated as central players in ferroptosis, a recently characterized cell death modality associated with the accumulation of lipid hydroperoxides: the products of LOX catalysis. To provide insight on their role, human embryonic kidney cells were transfected to overexpress each of the human isoforms associated with disease, 5-LOX, p12-LOX, and 15-LOX-1, which yielded stable cell lines that were demonstrably sensitized to ferroptosis. Interestingly, the cells could be rescued by less than half of a diverse collection of known LOX inhibitors. Furthermore, the cytoprotective compounds were similarly potent in each of the cell lines even though some were clearly isoform-selective LOX inhibitors. The cytoprotective compounds were subsequently demonstrated to be effective radical-trapping antioxidants, which protect lipids from autoxidation, the autocatalytic radical chain reaction that produces lipid hydroperoxides. From these data (and others reported herein), a picture emerges wherein LOX activity <i>may</i> contribute to the cellular pool of lipid hydroperoxides that initiate ferroptosis, but lipid autoxidation drives the cell death process

Preparation of Highly Reactive Pyridine- and Pyrimidine-Containing Diarylamine Antioxidants

We recently reported a preliminary account of our efforts to develop novel diarylamine radical-trapping antioxidants (Hanthorn, J. J. et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2012, 134, 8306−8309) wherein we demonstrated that the incorporation of ring nitrogens into diphenylamines affords compounds which display a compromise between H-atom transfer reactivity to peroxyl radicals and stability to one-electron oxidation. Herein we provide the details of the synthetic efforts associated with that report, which have been substantially expanded to produce a library of substituted heterocyclic diarylamines that we have used to provide further insight into the structure–reactivity relationships of these compounds as antioxidants (see the accompanying paper, DOI: 10.1021/jo301012x). The diarylamines were prepared in short, modular sequences from 2-aminopyridine and 2-aminopyrimidine wherein aminations of intermediate pyri­(mi)­dyl bromides and then Pd-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions of the amines and precursor bromides were the key steps to yield the diarylamines. The cross-coupling reactions were found to proceed best with Pd­(η³-1-PhC₃H₄)­(η⁵-C₅H₅) as precatalyst, which gave higher yields than the conventional Pd source, Pd₂(dba)₃