Phosphorothioate monoesters, synthesis

Lowe, Cullis, and co-workers have described general methods for the synthesis of oxygen chiral phosphorothioate monoesters (see Figs. 3 and 4). The synthesis by Cullis is strictly analogous to the synthesis of chiral phosphate monoesters by Knowles except that (- )-ephedrine is thiophosphorylated with PSCI3... 

A new one-pot method has been developed by Kraszewski for the synthesis of aryl nucleoside phosphate (3a-p) and phosphorothioate (4a-p) diesters. This method, based on H-phosphonate chemistry, employed diphenyl phosphoroch-loridate and a series of phenols. Depending on the substituents present on the phenols, oxidation conditions were optimized to avoid competing hydrolysis. A versatile procedure that permits easy access to H-phosphonoselenoate monoesters (5) has been developed by Stawinski. These monoesters, obtained by selenisation of a phosphinate using triphenylphosphine selenide in combination with trimethylsilyl chloride, reacted with a suitable nucleoside in pyridine/acetonitrile in the presence of diphenyl phosphorochloridate to yield... 

Full details of the synthesis of unsymmetrical diesters of pyrophosphoric acid by the reaction of the disilver salt of a monoester of phosphorothioic acid and a phosphate monoester have been published. In view of the good yields, the mild conditions, and the absence of symmetrical pyrophosphate byproducts it appears to be superior to previous routes to the nucleotide pyrophosphate coenzymes. Further, the findings that the procedure is insensitive to... 

An additional reason for the inferior performance of the H-phosphonate method compared to the phosphoramidite lies in its mechanism, which makes the synthesis very sensitive to pre-activation of the H-phosphonate monoesters with the conventional coupling agents, which must be avoided [138], However, the main appeal of the H-phosphonate approach lies in the ease it offers for the synthesis of backbone analogues modified at the phosphorus atom phosphorothioates [139], phos-photriesters [126] and especially phosphoramidates [126, 140, 141]. Now it is rarely used for routine oligonucleotide synthesis but very often for the preparation of variously modified analogues. Further developments in the H-phosphonate method have been made in the last decade by Polish [142] and Japanese researchers [143]. 

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