Hydrogenation functionalized pyridines

The antagonists of nicotinic acid are 6-aminonicotinamide and, less potent, 3-acetylpyridine and pyridine-3-sulfonic acid (H15, J4). Nicotinamide has also been reported to be effective in experimental cancer (S3). It is supposedly converted to nonphysiological nucleotide analogs of NAD and NADP because it becomes attached to available apo-dehydrogenase the resulting enzyme cannot function in hydrogen and electron-transfer reactions essential to normal cellular metabolism (D7). 

No further research was performed in this field until three decades later, when Arcadi et al. developed a one-pot entry into functionalized pyridines. Reaction required a catalyst to dehydrogenate a dihydropyridine intermediate to pyridine. At that time, the liberated hydrogen was believed to be a consequence of aromatization [189]. 

The attention of biochemists was first attracted to flavins as a result of their color and fluorescence. The study of spectral properties of flavins (Fig. 15-8) has been of importance in understanding these coenzymes. The biochemical role of the flavin coenzymes was first recognized through studies of the "old yellow enzyme"144 145 which was shown by Theorell to contain riboflavin 5 -phosphate. By 1938, FAD was recognized as the coenzyme of a different yellow protein, D-amino acid oxidase of kidney tissue. Like the pyridine nucleotides, the new flavin coenzymes were reduced by dithionite to nearly colorless dihydro forms (Figs. 15-7 and 15-8) revealing the chemical basis for their function as hydrogen carriers. 

The flavin-containing coenzymes are similar in importance to the pyridine coenzymes as functioning in hydrogen transport. In general the flavin coenzymes mediate hydrogen transport between coenyzmes, rather than between substrates, although their function in anaerobic bacteria and certain other tissues indicates that they may also play an important role in hydrogen transport at the substrate level. 

Selective fluonnation in polar solvents has proved commercially successful in the synthesis of 5 fluorouracil and its pyrimidine relatives, an extensive subject that will be discussed in another section Selective fluonnation of enolates [47], enols [48], and silyl enol ethers [49] resulted in preparation of a/phn-fluoro ketones, fieto-diketones, heta-ketoesters, and aldehydes The reactions of fluorine with these functionalities is most probably an addition to the ene followed by elimination of fluonde ion or hydrogen fluoride rather than a simple substitution In a similar vein, selective fluonnation of pyridmes to give 2-fluoropyridines was shown to proceed through pyridine difluondes [50]... 

A thioamide of isonicotinic acid has also shown tuberculostatic activity in the clinic. The additional substitution on the pyridine ring precludes its preparation from simple starting materials. Reaction of ethyl methyl ketone with ethyl oxalate leads to the ester-diketone, 12 (shown as its enol). Condensation of this with cyanoacetamide gives the substituted pyridone, 13, which contains both the ethyl and carboxyl groups in the desired position. The nitrile group is then excised by means of decarboxylative hydrolysis. Treatment of the pyridone (14) with phosphorus oxychloride converts that compound (after exposure to ethanol to take the acid chloride to the ester) to the chloro-pyridine, 15. The halogen is then removed by catalytic reduction (16). The ester at the 4 position is converted to the desired functionality by successive conversion to the amide (17), dehydration to the nitrile (18), and finally addition of hydrogen sulfide. There is thus obtained ethionamide (19)... 

An alternate scheme for preparing these compounds starts with a prefabricated pyrimidone ring. Aldol condensation of that compound (95), which contains an eneamide function, with pyridine-3-aldehyde (80), gives the product 96. Catalytic hydrogenation gives the product of 1,4 reduction. The resulting pyrimidinedione, of course exists in the usual tautomeric keto (97a) and enol (97b) forms. Reaction with phosphorus oxyxchloride leads to the chloro derivative 98. Displacement with methoxide gives 99. Reaction of this last intermediate with the furylalkylamine derivative 92 leads to the H-2 blocker lupitidine (100) [22]. 

Reductive alkylations have been carried out successfully with compounds that are not carbonyls or amines, but which are transformed during the hydrogenation to suitable functions. Azides, azo, hydrazo, nitro and nitroso compounds, oximes, pyridines, and hydroxylamines serve as amines phenols, acetals, ketals, or hydrazones serve as carbonyls 6,7,8,9,12,17,24,41,42,58). Alkylations using masked functions have been successful at times when use of unmasked functions have failed (2). In a synthesis leading to methoxatin, a key... 

Sulfonic esters are most frequently prepared by treatment of the corresponding halides with alcohols in the presence of a base. The method is much used for the conversion of alcohols to tosylates, brosylates, and similar sulfonic esters. Both R and R may be alkyl or aryl. The base is often pyridine, which functions as a nucleophilic catalyst, as in the similar alcoholysis of carboxylic acyl halides (10-21). Primary alcohols react the most rapidly, and it is often possible to sulfonate selectively a primary OH group in a molecule that also contains secondary or tertiary OH groups. The reaction with sulfonamides has been much less frequently used and is limited to N,N-disubstituted sulfonamides that is, R" may not be hydrogen. However, within these limits it is a useful reaction. The nucleophile in this case is actually R 0 . However, R" may be hydrogen (as well as alkyl) if the nucleophile is a phenol, so that the product is RS020Ar. Acidic catalysts are used in this case. Sulfonic acids have been converted directly to sulfonates by treatment with triethyl or trimethyl orthoformate HC(OR)3, without catalyst or solvent and with a trialkyl phosphite P(OR)3. ... 

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