Cydopropyl groups

The replacement of a nitrile with a carboxylic acid group is the least detrimental transformation, and is an example of an atypical bioisosteric replacement. Moreover, there are a few others that add polarity to the molecule, such as methyl to methyl amide, addition of a isobutyric acid, 1,2-phenyl to 2,3-pyridine, and 2,3-pyridine to 2,3-pyrazine groups. Interestingly, the substitution of a methyl with an exotic trifluoromethyl ether moiety [34] is bioisosteric, even though there is a considerable increase in lipophilidty. This is also the case for the replacement of the more metabolically labile isopropyl ether with the cydopropyl group. Finally, a little considered bioisosteric transformation is 2-thiophene to para-fluorophenyl, which has been very recently proposed in a large-scale MMP analysis [35]. 

In order to optimize the antitumoral properties of radicicol, particularly in vivo, the same group synthesized the analogous cycloproparadicicol, where the epoxide function is replaced by a cyclopropane [64]. Submitted to the conditions of the previous RCM reaction (CH2C12, 42°C, 19h), cydopropyl triene 94 leads to the expected macrolide 95 in only 16% yield, along with 30% of the corresponding 28-membered dimeric macrocycle (Scheme 2.37). After numerous assays, the best conditions tested (toluene, 110 °C, 10 min) brought the yield up to 55%. In this case, the balance between thermodynamic and kinetic factors seems decisive for the course of the reaction. The fact that the monomeric product is predominant at elevated temperature indicates that this form is entropically favored. 

A more recent approach, which also profits from the synthetic versatility of stabilized thionium ions, has been elaborated by Berard and Piras [22]. These authors observed that the cydobutane thionium ions 1-76 obtained from the cydopropyl phenyl sulfides 1-75 by treatment with pTsOH under anhydrous conditions can be trapped by an adjacent electron-rich aromatic ring to give the chromane derivatives 1-77 in good to excellent yields (Scheme 1.20). As expected, 1-77 were obtained as single diastereoisomers with a cis-orientation of the methyl and the phenylthio group as a consequence of steric constraints. 

Another carbocationic domino process by the same group resulted in the formation of indane derivatives using cydopropyl carbinol compounds as starting mate-... 

Although not formally a type I cleavage process, j3-cleavage of cyclopropyl ketones to form propenyl ketones and/or epimerized cyclopropyl groups bears such a close similarity to a-cleavage that it should be discussed in combination with the latter. The first report of a reaction thought to occur by j3-cleavage was made by Pitts in 1954 for the formation of methyl propenyl ketone from methyl cydopropyl ketone, ... 

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