Electrophiles quinoline/isoquinoline reactions with

Heterocyclic amines are compounds that contain one or more nitrogen atoms as part of a ring. Saturated heterocyclic amines usually have the same chemistry as their open-chain analogs, but unsaturated heterocycles such as pyrrole, imidazole, pyridine, and pyrimidine are aromatic. All four are unusually stable, and all undergo aromatic substitution on reaction with electrophiles. Pyrrole is nonbasic because its nitrogen lone-pair electrons are part of the aromatic it system. Fused-ring heterocycles such as quinoline, isoquinoline, indole, and purine are also commonly found in biological molecules. 

In addition to the very important palladium-catalysed reactions, boronic acids undergo a number of useful reactions that do not require transition-metal catalysis, particularly those involving electrophilic ipso-substitutions by carbon electrophiles. The Petasis reaction involves ip,y(9-replacement of boron under Mannich-like conditions and is successful with electron-rich heterocyclic boronic acids. A variety of quinolines and isoquinolines, activated by ethyl pyrocarbonate, have been used as the Mannich reagent . A Petasis reaction on indole 3-boronic acids under standard conditions was an efficient route to very high de a-indolylglycines. " ... 

There is little to differentiate these derivatives from benzenoid acids and esters, save for the easy decarboxylation of quinoline-2- and isoquinoline-1-acids, via an ylide that can be trapped with aldehydes as electrophiles - the Hammick reaction. Loss of carbon dioxide from A-methylquinolinium-2- and -isoquinolinium-1-acids, and trapping of resulting ylides, can be achieved with stronger heating. ... 

Reactions of highly electrophilic fluoro-containing compounds with cyclic enamines, isoquinoline, quinoline, pyridine and indole derivatives 01MI77. 

Following the dipole moments presented, quaternary alkylations on nitrogen take place readily. But unlike pyridine, both quinoline and isoquinoline heterocyclic nitrogen promote the reaction with nucleophiles. What is more, electrophilic substitution takes place much more easily than in pyridine, and the substituents are generally located in carbocyclic ring preferentially in the more activated positions of the benzene ring, with a positional selectivity in the case of quinolines in the order of C8 > C5 > other positions. 

The lone-pair electron on the nitrogen is responsible for electrophilic reactions on its side. Thus, heterocyclic nitrogen atom of quinoline and isoquinolines react with electrophiles, as alkyl halides, alkyl sulfates, alkyl-toluene-p-sulfonates, etc., providing quinolinium and isoquinolinium salts. 

Quinolines and isoquinolines can also react with electrophiles at the pyridine side. This can be rationalized by a different reaction mechanism involving the prior introduction of a nucleophile in the heterocyclic quinoline/isoquinoline ring followed by an electrophilic substitution involving attack on the intermediate enamine. Notable is the electrophilic bromination of isoquinoline hydrobromide in a solvent like nitrobenzene that provides 81% yield of 4-bromoisoquinoline, in contrast to the bromination or chlorination of an isoquinoline-aluminum chloride complex that affords 78% of 5-bromoisoquinoline. Exhaustive bromination or chlorination under Lewis acid conditions usually yields mixtures of 5,8-halogenated isoquinolines along with 5,7,8-trisubstituted derivatives. ... 

A systematic and intensive theoretical study of reactivity has been reported by Brown and his colleagues,8,115,139-142 who discussed the reactivity of pyridine, quinoline, and isoquinoline in terms of localization energies. They investigated the values of these indices, first of all for electrophilic substitution, with regard to the value of the Coulomb integral of the heteroatom orbital and the orbitals adjacent to it (auxiliary inductive parameters). They demonstrated that the course of electrophilic substitution can be estimated from theoretical reactivity indices if 77-electron densities are used for reactions that occur readily and localization energies for those occurring only reluctantly. 

OCH3 and NH3, give exclusive attack at the hard electrophilic centres, i.e. C—F, whereas soft nucleophiles displace bromine. This is further evidence for the importance of ion-dipole interactions, regarding attack at C—F bonds. Reactions of perfluoro-quinoline and -isoquinoline with hard and soft nucleophiles have also revealed a sensitivity towards a change in orientation of attack with the nature of the nucleophile [114] (Figure 9.42). 

All the reactions noted in this category for pyridine (see 8.1.1), which involve donation of the nitrogen lone pair to electrophiles, also occur with quinoline and isoquinoline and little further comment is necessary, for example the respective p/faH values, 4.94 and 5.4, show them to be of similar basicity to pyridine. Each, like pyridine, readily forms an A-oxide and quaternary salts. 

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