Pyrazine ring, amino

One of the most common approaches to pyrazine ring construction is the condensation of diaminoethane and 1,2-dicarbonyI compounds such as 206 to provide pyrazines 207 after aromatization. Aromatization was accomplished by treating the dihydropyrazines with manganese dioxide in the presence of potassium hydroxide <00JCS(P1)381>. The N-protected 1,2-dicarbonyl compounds 206 were prepared from L-amino acids by initial conversion into diazoketones followed by oxidation to the glyoxal. 

The Chichibabin amination of phenylpyrazine with N-labeled potassium amide/liquid ammonia gave two products, 3-amino- and 5-amino-2-phenylpyrazine in both products the label is only present in the amino group, and no label was found to be incorporated into the pyrazine ring (82MI1). This result proves that in the aminodehydrogenation of phenylpyrazine, no Sn(ANRORC) mechanism is involved. This result is confirmed by the fact that amination of phenylpyrazine in the presence of the radical scavenger azobenzene, a compound that has been found to prevent the Sn(ANRORC) mechanism in the Chichibabin amination of 4-phenylpyrimidine, still yields both aminopyrazines. 

Construction of pyrazine rings from a-amino nitriles has been sometimes completed through multistep reactions. For example, 2-aminopyrazine 1-oxide 163 is synthesized via amide intermediate 162 formed by reaction of methyl a-aminocyanoacetate with a-oximino carboxylic acid (Scheme 45) <1994H(38)1581>. 

The natural cofactor of the AAHs, BH4 (Scheme 2), is a heterocyclic compound chemically classified as a pteridine that includes a fused pyrimidine and pyrazine rings. As many other naturally occurring pteridines BH4 has a pterin structure, which includes an amino substituent in position 2 and an oxo group in position 4 of the pyrimidine ring. The term biopterin is reserved for pterins with a dihydroxypropyl group in position 6. 

Pteridones behave electrochemically akin to quinoxaline, the pyrazine ring being reduced. In the first, reversible step of 6-methyl-2-amino-4(3//)-pteridone (225 R = H), a 5,8-dihydro derivative (226) is formed, which in a pH-dependent reaction tautomerizes to the more stable 7,8-dihydro compound 227 227 is reduced in acidic and neutral solution to the 5,6,7,8-tetra-hydro derivative 228, which may be oxidized to a quinonoid dihydro compound (229) 227 is formed on tautomerization of 229358-362 [Eq. (126)]. 

Stepwise pyrazine ring-formation using 5-nitropyrimidine was applied to the synthesis of 4a-hydroxytetrahydrobiopterin (95), which is an interesting intermediate in the metabolism of aromatic amino acids (see Sect. 5.2). As illustrated in Scheme 18, the 5-aminopyrimidine 97 prepared from chloroni-tropyrimidine 96 by nucleophilic substitution followed by catalytic hydrogenation was oxidized under acidic conditions to o-quinone derivative 98. 

Cephalostains 1-6 (507-512), powerful cell growth inhibitory substances against the PS cell line, were isolated from the marine worm Cephalodiscus gilchristi collected in the Indian Ocean 406-408). The structure of cephalostatin 1 (507) was determined by X-ray analysis. Cephalostatins apparently result from a biosynthetic condensation of 2-amino-3-oxosteroid units to yield dimeric steroidal molecules connected by a pyrazine ring. 

Lipid-Protein-Carbohydrate Interactions. Evidence for such complex interaction was recently reported by Huang et al (36) who observed that the addition of corn lipids to zein and corn carbohydrates enhanced the formation of alkylpyrazines, indicating that lipid-derived free radicals may accelerate the rate of Maillard reactions. Two of the alkylpyrazines, identified in such mixtures after heating for 30 minutes at 180°C, have 5-carbon alkyl substitution at the pyrazine ring and could only be explained by interaction of lipid or lipid decomposition products. These authors suggested that condensation of amino ketones, formed by protein-carbohydrate interaction, may yield 3,6-dihydropyrazine which would in turn react with pentanal, a lipid oxidation product, to form 2,5-dimethyl-3-pentylpyrazine. 

The greater stability of the pyrazine ring to oxidation compared with that of benzene enables pyrazinecarboxylic acids to be prepared by permanganate oxidation of either quinoxalines or phenazines. The pyrazine ring is more stable than the pyrimidine ring to acid and alkaline hydrolysis. Thus, pteridine is converted into 2-amino-3-formylpyrazine on treatment with dilute sulfuric acid and N-(3-formyl-2-pyrazinyl)formamidine oxime on treatment with sodium carbonate and hydroxylamine (Scheme 11).136 Aminopyrazines and... 

The amino substituent attached to the pyrazine ring facilitates electrophilic attack at the ring carbon atoms in the ortho and para positions. Thus, bromination of aminopyrazine in glacial acetic acid... 

One of the few examples of formation of the pyrazine ring as the last step in the synthesis of imidazo[4,5-fe]pyrazines (504) involves the reaction of biacetyl with the diamine (503) generated in situ from the 4-nitro-5-amino compound (502) (70TL1013>. Another synthesis involving the use of an imidazole is the condensation of ethylenediamine (505) with (506) to give the perhydro derivative (507). 

Ring aUylation and propenylation of methylpyrazine has been described (634) acetonylpyrazine with phenyllithium gives 2-acetonyl-6-phenylpyrazine (639) and 2,5-dimethylpyrazine with isopentylUthium gave 3-isopentyl-2,S-dimethylpyrazine (70). Aldehydes and ketones in the presence of a solution of an alkali or alkaline earth metal in liquid ammonia, or a suspension of these metals in other solvents, can be used to alkylate the pyrazine ring in moderate to good yields (614, 640, 641). This alkylation has been successfully applied to alkyl- and dialkyl(amino- and methoxy)pyrazines, and a mechanism has been proposed for the reaction (614). For example, the reaction of potassium with methylpyrazine and ethyl methyl ketone, catalyzed by sodamide (0.25 mol) gave 88% of 2 -butyl-6-methylpyrazine. 

Mercaptopyrazine in aqueous hydrochloric or acetic acids was chlorinated to give the sulfonyl chloride which with excess liquid ammonia gave 2-sulfamoyl-pyrazine (1006, 1153). Direct sulfonation of the pyrazine ring has never been reported (819) but 2-sulfopyrazine (17) has been prepared from 2-chloropyrazine and aqueous sodium sulfite at 150° (819), and from 2-fluoropyrazine and aqueous sodium sulfite at reflux for 2 hours (882, 884). 2-Amino-3-mercaptopyrazine in aqueous sodium hydroxide with concentrated ammonia and sodium hypochlorite has been shown to give 2-amino-3-sulfamoylpyrazine (1101). 

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