Pyrophosphates, tetraalkyl synthesis

Steinberg, G.M., Reactions of dialkyl phosphites — synthesis of dialkyl chlo-rophosphates, tetraalkyl pyrophosphates, and mixed orthophosphate esters, /. Org. Chem., 15, 673, 1950. 

The esters also react readily with aryl hydrazines to give aryl hydrazone derivatives. Examples of the latter were first synthesized (prior to the availability of tetraalkyl carbonylphosphonates) from tetraalkyl methylenebisphosphonates and aryl diazonium salts, analogously to the phosphonoglyoxylate hydrazone synthesis described in a previous section. First made as possible precursors in a ketone synthesis, several of these compounds, converted to free acid salts by treatment with BTMS followed by dicyclohexylamine in methanol, proved to have unexpected inhibitory activity vs the pyrophosphate-dependent phospho-fructokinase of the parasite T. gondii, which causes a potentially lethal opportunistic infection in immunocompromised persons such as AIDS patients [94]. In fact, the 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazone of carbonylbisphosphonic acid (as the tetrasodium salt) dramatically abated toxoplasmosis lesions in infected human foreskin fibroblasts [94]. Animal toxicity in this compound, probably arising from in vivo hydrolysis to the highly toxic hydrazine, precluded its future development, but the result remains an interesting lead. 

As a further method, vhich is also suitable for the synthesis of mixed tetraalkyl pyrophosphates (5), the reaction of dialkyl chlorcphosfhates with dialkyl hydrogen phosphates in the presence of molar amounts of a tertiary amine has been established (Figure 3). 

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