Kuleshova O. Cyclic 2-azahetaryl-3-enaminonitriles: toward synthesis of functionalized azaheterocycles, metal complexation and probes design

The research carried out in the course of this PhD work is centered on cyclic 2-azahetaryl-3-enaminonitrile derivatives which represent an attractive scaffold due to its high number of potential reactive sites. Regioselective functionalization of each site may give access to various structurally different Nitrogen-containing moieties featuring an azaheterocycle substituent. One first application in heterocyclic synthesis of 2-azahetaryl-2-(1-R-pyrrolidin-2-ylidene)acetonitriles, readily accessed from available and cheap starting materials, is their involvement in Knorr-type synthesis of pyrazoles (isoxazoles) where they play the role of the 1,3-dielectrophiles. Thus 4-azahetaryl-3-(ω-aminopropyl)-1H-pyrazole(isoxazole)-5-amines are formed with complete regioselectivity in good yields 50-85%. This establishes an efficient and easily reproducible two-step approach to heterocycle-substituted amino-pyrazoles from heterocyclic acetonitriles. Unprecedented subsequent transformations were carried out providing an access to regioselectively derivatized polyamino azoles, tetracyclic compounds in up to 45% overall yield and arylated pyrazoles in up to 71% yield through diazotization, followed by arylation through Suzuki−Miyaura cross-coupling or C−H activation. We illustrated the unprecedented but efficient nitrogen protection as a nitrosamine during the Pd-catalyzed cross-coupling. Also the possibility of pyrazoles C–H activation in order to get densely substituted pyrazoles was shown for the first time. We also performed the quaternarization of the nitrogen of the heterocycle to investigate the effect of a cationic moiety on the regioselectivity of the reaction of such azahetaryl-3-enaminonitrile derivatives with 1,2-binucleophiles. The increased electron demand on the heterocycle induced a reaction path shift that produced the azole ring-opened product. Derivatives of benzoxazole and benzimidazole form second way products straight away, while the one of benzothiazole undergoes the “classical” transformation pathway and subsequent nucleophilic substitution at C-2 center of benzothiazole leading to azepine cycle formation. In the case of benzoxazolyl substituted enaminonitriles under the same conditions both regioisomers are formed. Formylation reaction of 2-(benzo[d]thiazol-2-yl)-2-(pyrrolidin-2-ylidene) acetonitrile with N,N-dimethylformamide dimethyl acetal (DMF DMA), followed by further reamination and cyclization under basic conditions gave rise to pyrrolo[3,2-c]pyridine-6-imine, a compound that exhibits a high fluorescent quantum yield (Ф = 61%) and proved to be very sensitive to protonation. Both characteristics are expected to be useful to develop an unprecedented water detection test for aprotic solvents. We have demonstrated that such a fluorometric method for determining water content in DMSO presents a limit of detection of 0.068%. From other enaminonitriles reactions with DMF DMA provided either a mixture of methylated and formylated products, or only methylated products (few adducts also shown non reactivity). These observations prompted us to assume that the presence of easily accessible NH group is essential in formylation of the C-3 center of pyrrolidine allowing to propose a mechanism for this uncommon reaction. 2-Azahetaryl-2-(pyrrolidin-2-ylidene)acetonitriles and their 3-oxo-benzo- analogues were also used to create: a) visible spectrophotometric probes for Zn(II) b) water stable BF2-rigidified complexes that overcome the limitations of BODIPY-dyes and have Stokes shifts up to 9000 cm-1, emission at violet-blue range, fluorescence both in solution (Ф up to 90%) and crystalline state; c) films of polymeric composites exhibiting photovoltaic effect.