Protective groups sulfonamides

Sulfonamides (R2NSO2R ) are prepared from an amine and sulfonyl chloride in the presence of pyridine or aqueous base. The sulfonamide is one of the most stable nitrogen protective groups. Arylsulfonamides are stable to alkaline hydrolysis, and to catalytic reduction they are cleaved by Na/NH3, Na/butanol, sodium naphthalenide, or sodium anthracenide, and by refluxing in acid (48% HBr/cat. phenol). Sulfonamides of less basic amines such as pyrroles and indoles are much easier to cleave than are those of the more basic alkyl amines. In fact, sulfonamides of the less basic amines (pyrroles, indoles, and imidazoles) can be cleaved by basic hydrolysis, which is almost impossible for the alkyl amines. Because of the inherent differences between the aromatic — NH group and simple aliphatic amines, the protection of these compounds (pyrroles, indoles, and imidazoles) will be described in a separate section. One appealing proj>erty of sulfonamides is that the derivatives are more crystalline than amides or carbamates. 

Protective group chemistry for these amines has been separated from the simple amines because chemically they behave quite differently with respect to protective group cleavage. The increased acidity of these aromatic amines makes it easier to cleave the various amide, carbamate, and sulfonamide groups that are used to protect this class. A similar situation arises in the deprotection of nucleoside bases (e.g., the isobutanamide is cleaved with methanolic ammonia ), again, because of the increased acidity of the NH group. 

Cram and Hogberg have prepared a number of compounds similar to 3, utilizing mesyl and tosyl as protecting groups. These syntheses are generally unequivocal, but removal of the sulfonamide has proved troublesome (see also Sect. 4.5). 

Problematic functional groups, however, are thioethers and disulfides [28] as well as free amines which poison catalysts of type 1 [4c]. In case of amines this problem is easily solved by choosing either an appropriate protecting group for nitrogen (e.g. amide, sulfonamide, urethane), or simply by protonation since ammonium salts were found to be compatible with 1 [4c]. As will be discussed in Sect. 4, free amines can also be metathesized in supercritical C02 as the reaction medium [7]. 

Protected primary allylic amines were generated from allylic carbonates and ammonia equivalents. Iridium-catalyzed allylic substitution has now been reported with sulfonamides [90, 91], imides [89, 91-93], and trifluoroacetamide [89] to form branched, protected, primary allylic amines (Table 5). When tested, yields and selectivities were highest from reactions catalyzed by complexes derived from L2. Reactions of potassium trifluoroacetamide and lithium di-tert-butyhminodi-carboxylate were conducted with catalysts derived from the simplified ligand L7. Reactions of nosylamide and trifluoroacetamide form singly-protected amine products. The other ammonia equivalents lead to the formation of doubly protected allylic amine products, but one protecting group can be removed selectively, except when the product is derived from phthalimide. 

Hydroamination of Allenes Different related amines can also be cyclized. The use of free amino groups led to long reaction times (several days), but sulfonamides, acetyl or BOc as protecting group led to fast conversion (in the latter case, problems of diastereoselectivity were observed). Optimization studies showed that, although cationic gold (I) complexes were not effective for these conversions, AuCI was a very good catalyst for these reactions. 

A primary or a secondary amine can be protected by reaction with phenacyl-sulfonyl chloride (PhC0CH2S02Cl) to give a sulfonamide RNHS02CH2C0Ph or R2NS02CH2C0Ph.1741 The protecting group can be removed when desired with zinc and acetic acid. Sulfonyl chlorides react with azide ion to give sulfonyl azides RSO-.N3.1742 OS IV, 34, 943 V, 39, 179, 1055 VI, 78, 652 VII, 501 69, 158. See also OS VI, 788. 

The first synthesis of optically pure N-methylated derivatives of Ala, Leu, Phe, and Tyr was published by Fischer and Lipschitz in 1915 73 using the sulfonamide method. Two main developments have ensured that this method remains useful for the preparation of TV-alkyl amino acids both in solution and solid phase (1) the introduction of the Mitsunobu reaction for the alkylation step and (2) the introduction of replacements for Tos (such as the Fukuyama Nbs) that allow easy removal of the sulfonamide protecting group after the alkylation step. Sulfonamide-protected amino acid derivatives can be alkylated in two different ways. Because of the acidity of the sulfonamide hydrogen it is possible to introduce the N-substituent either by direct alkylation (e.g., alkyl halides) or by the Mitsunobu reaction 74 (Scheme 4). 

However, sulfonamides are much more difficult to hydrolyze back to the amine than are carboxamides. In peptide synthesis (Section 25-7C) the commonly used sulfonyl protecting groups are 4-methylbenzenesulfonyl or 4-bromo-benzenesulfonyl groups. These groups can be removed as necessary from the sulfonamide by reduction with sodium metal in liquid ammonia ... 

A variety of five-membered nitrogen heterocycles can be prepared efficiently by inter- or intramolecular addition/cyclizations of sulfonamide anions with alkynyliodonium salts. The intermolecular variant employs the combination of the amides 172 or anilides 174 with propynyl(phenyl)iodonium triflate (Scheme 65) [131,132]. The yield of dihydropyrroles 173 in this cyclization is extremely sensitive to the nature of the protective group P the tosyl group in 172 proved... 

Ladlow and coworkers recently developed an acid-labile fluorous benz-aldehyde protecting group 43 to facilitate the parallel synthesis of sulfonamides 44 (Scheme 25) [56]. The Suzuki coupling reaction was conducted under microwave irradiation. All the intermediates and the final products were purified by F-SPE. 

An alternative sequence to avoid dimer formation in the synthesis of bosentan has appeared in the patent literature. The SNAr reaction with ethylene glycol is carried out first and the primary alcohol protected as the acetate ester 30. The second displacement with sulfonamide 24 and saponification of the ester protecting group then provide bosentan (l).29 This route is reported to provide the product in high purity and yield, but lacks the advantages of improved throughput afforded by the optimized route. 

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