Pyrazines, synthesis from oximes

In the synthesis of various heterocycles from a-amino ketones, pyrazine formation can be a complicating side reaction due to the tendency of the a-amino ketone to dimerize. One way of avoiding this problem would be to generate the a-amino ketone in a protected form, specifically, as an a-amino acetal. Such derivatives allow the manipulation of the amino moiety as desired. Accordingly, the azirine intermediates derived from oxime tosylates by the Neber rearrangement are subsequently treated with acidic ethanol to furnish the corresponding a-amino acetals (equation 65). ° ... 

The mechanism of Gutknecht pyrazine synthesis has been studied and is well understood. Reduction of the a-oximino ketone affords an a-amino ketone. If the reduction is carried out under acidic conditions, the a-amino ketone may be isolated as an acid salt. These acid addition salts are entirely stable. In these salts the ketone carbonyl may be hydrated, and this is particularly true for a-amino aldehydes. However, as soon as the free base of the amine is generated, either from the salt or during reduction of the oxime if this is carried out under neutral or basic conditions, rapid bimolecular imine formation occurs, which is then followed by rapid intramolecular formation of a second imine to afford a dihydropyrazine. Oxidation to the pyrazine may occur spontaneously upon exposure to air, particularly in the presence of transition metals, and it is this facile aerobic oxidation that doubtless accounts for the isolation of pyrazines by early workers in the field. 

The usual method of synthesis of this system is by condensation of a diketone with 3,4-diamino-oxadiazoles (151). The alternative use of butyllithium followed by a bis-chlorooxime leads to the formation of the derivative (152) <91JHC1677> which can be cyclized to a bis(oxadiazolo)pyrazine (Equation (20)). Tetrahydro derivatives are formed from the bis-oximes (153) which give either the furoxan derivatives (155) (70-98%) by oxidation with potassium ferricyanide or the oxadiazoles (154) (55-70%) on heating (Scheme 14) <85JOC5l23>. 

A thkd approach for the synthesis of 6-formylpterin (23) starts from iminodipropionitrile [2869-25-2] (27). The intermediate pyrazine (28) is also prepared starting from chloropymvaldehyde oxime (41,42). The requked formylpterin (23) is obtained in three steps in 71% yield, starting from the intemiediate pyrazine (28). A few other routes for the synthesis of 6-formylpterin (23) are described in the literature. All are multistep procedures with only moderate overall yields (43—45). 

In 1992 Heathcock and Smith developed efficient routes for the synthesis of symmetrical and unsymmetrical bis-steroidal pyrazines from readily available precursors such as 3-cholestanone and androstanone (40). In a later publication they synthesized the unsymmetrical bis-steroidal pyrazines by the reaction of appropriate a-acetoxy ketones with a-amino oximes. Heating either 2/3,17/3-dihydroxyandrostan-3-one diacetate or 2/3-17/3-dihydroxyhecogenin-3-one diacetate with 2-amino-3-methoxyimino-cholestane in toluene at 145°C gave the corresponding symmetrical pyrazine in moderate yields. 

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