Simple amides

Nitriles and simple amides differ in physical properties the former are liquids or low-melting Solids, whilst the latter are generally solids. If the amide is a solid and insoluble in water, it may be readily prepared from the nitrile by dissolving in concentrated sulphuric acid and pouring the solution into water ... 

The preparation of polyacrylamides and postpolymeri2ation reactions on polyacrylamides are usually conducted ia water. Reactions on the amide groups of polyacrylamides are often more compHcated than reactions of simple amides because of neighboring group effects. Reaction rates, for example, can differ considerably. 

Other Preparative Reactions. Polyamidation has been an active area of research for many years, and numerous methods have been developed for polyamide formation. The synthesis of polyamides has been extensively reviewed (54). In addition, many of the methods used to prepare simple amides are appHcable to polyamides (55,56). Polyamides of aromatic diamines and aUphatic diacids can also be made by the reaction of the corresponding aromatic diisocyanate and diacids (57). 

Simple amides that are difficult to cleave can first be converted to a BOC derivative by an exchange process that relies on the reduced electrophilicity of the carbamate as well as its increased steric bulk. °... 

White s observations on the pharmacological activity of the lysergic acids and their simple amides are of practical, therapeutic interest in view of the possibility of preparing from natural supplies of these acids, partially synthetic oxytocic substances of which a first series by Stoll and Hofmann has been described (p. 528), including d-lysergic-(-t-)-jS-butanolamide, already the subject of promising clinical trials. ... 

Interposition of a methylene group between the phenyl ring and the heterocycle leads to the benzyldiami nopyrimidines, a class of compounds notable for their antibacterial activity. Condensation of hydrocinnamate 54 with ethyl formate leads to the hydroxymethylene derivative 55. In this case, too, the heterocyclic ring is formed by reaction with guanidine. This sequence probably involves initial addition-elimination to the forniyl carbon to form 56 cyclization in this case involves simple amide formation. Tautomerization then affords the hydroxy derivative 57. This is converted to tetroxoprim (58) by first... 

With its structure known, the synthesis of a peptide can then be undertaken— perhaps to obtain a larger amount for biological evaluation. A simple amide might be formed by treating an amine and a carboxylic acid with dicyclo-hexylcarbodiimide (DCC Section 21.7), but peptide synthesis is a more difficult problem because many different amide bonds must be formed in a specific order rather than at random. 

At this point, the excess acid or amine can be removed. Then, when the nylon salt is heated, the condensation begins, just as in the preparation of simple amides. The first step is... 

Simple amides are satisfactory protecting groups only if the rest of the molecule can resist the vigorous acidic or alkaline hydrolysis necessary for removal. For this... 

Amides can also be deacylated by partial reduction. If the reduction proceeds only to the carbinolamine stage, hydrolysis can liberate the deprotected amine. Trichloroac-etamides are readily cleaved by sodium borohydride in alcohols by this mechanism.237 Benzamides, and probably other simple amides, can be removed by careful partial reduction with diisobutylaluminum hydride (see Section 5.3.1.1).238... 

An explanation for the lack of formation of linear polysilazanes in base catalyzed ring opening is suggested by one of Fink s publications (7). Fink observes that oligosilazane amides will undergo fragmentation to simple amides under the conditions employed by Andrianov ... 

Simple amides of this type are the bis(trimethylsilyl)amides M[N(SiMe3)2]2 (M = Cd and Hg) the essential thermodynamic data of which have been determined in calorimetric measurements of the heats of hydrolysis in dilute H2S04.146 Evaluation of the measured data yielded the standard enthalpies of formation AH° = —854(21)kJmoU1 and —834(9)kJmol-1 for M =Cd and Hg, respectively. Using subsidiary data, the average thermochemical bond energies E—(Cd—N) 144 and E(Hg—N) 108 kJ mol-1 were also obtained, i.e., the Cd—N bonds are considerably stronger than the Hg—N bonds. 

Fig. 1 (a) Resonance and (b) HOMO-LUMO interaction in simple amides. 

Acyl-transfer reactions are some of the most important conversions in organic chemistry and biochemistry. Recent work has shown that adjacent cationic groups can also activate amides in acyl-transfer reactions. Friedel-Crafts acylations are known to proceed well with carboxylic acids, acid chlorides (and other halides), and acid anhydrides, but there are virtually no examples of acylations with simple amides.19 During studies related to unsaturated amides, we observed a cyclization reaction that is essentially an intramolecular acyl-transfer reaction involving an amide (eq 15). The indanone product is formed by a cyclization involving the dicationic species (40). To examine this further, the related amides 41 and 42 were studied in superacid promoted conversions (eqs 16-17). It was found that amide 42 leads to the indanone product while 41... 

Besides the intramolecular acyl-transfer reactions, electrophilic activation is shown to occur with intermolecular Friedel-Craft-type reactions.18 When the simple amides (45a,b) are reacted in the presence of superacid, the monoprotonated species (46a,b) is unreactive towards benzene (eq 18). Although in the case of 45b a trace amount of benzophenone is detected as a product, more than 95% of the starting amides 45a,b are isolated upon workup. In contrast, amides 47 and 48 give the acyl-transfer products in good yields (eqs 19-20). It was proposed that dications 49-50 are formed in the superacidic solution. The results indicate that protonated amino-groups can activate the adjacent (protonated) amide-groups in acyl-transfer reactions. 

An attractive alternative is to study intramolecular reactions. These are generally faster than the corresponding intermolecular processes, and are frequently so much faster that it is possible to observe those types of reaction involved in enzyme catalysis. Thus groups like carboxyl and imidazole are involved at the active sites of many enzymes hydrolysing aliphatic esters and amides. Bimolecular reactions in water between acetic acid or imidazole and substrates such as ethyl acetate and simple amides are frequently too slow to... 

I n addition to the direct oxidation of simple amides, indirect oxidations of amides have proven useful for synthesizing chiral starting materials. Such reactions are often employed when direct electrolyses... 

Melting and boiling points Primary amides have much higher melting and boiling points than carboxylic acids. Many simple amides are solid at room temperature. 

By contrast, lithium enolates derived from tertiary amides do react with oxiranes The diastereoselectivity in the reaction of simple amide enolates with terminal oxiranes has been addressed and found to be low (Scheme 45). The chiral bicyclic amide enolate 99 reacts with a good diastereoselectivity with ethylene oxide . The reaction of the chiral amide enolate 100 with the chiral oxiranes 101 and 102 occurs with a good diastereoselectivity (in the matched case ) interestingly, the stereochemical course is opposite to the one observed with alkyl iodides. The same reversal is found in the reaction of the amide enolate 103. By contrast, this reversal in diastereoselectivity compared to alkyl iodides was not found in the reaction of the hthium enolate 104 with the chiral oxiranes 105 and 106 °. It should be noted that a strong matched/mismatched effect occurs for enolates 100 and 103 with chiral oxiranes, and excellent diastereoselec-tivities can be achieved. 

The barrier to inversion at nitrogen in A-heteroatom-substituted hydroxamic esters should be greater than that found for hydroxamic esters or simple amides. However, it is likely to be substantially reduced in anomeric amides relative to amines since the planar transition state in which nitrogen is sp hybridized, can benefit from jr-overlap with the carbonyl (Figure 3b) and this has been verified experimenfally Rudchenko has measured an inversion barrier for A,A-dialkoxyureas af AG = 9-11 kcalmoH and fhose of acyclic dialkoxyamines fypicaUy af AG = 20-22 kcalmoH ... 

By far the most common method for preparation of amides is the reaction of ammonia or a primary or secondary amine with one of the reactive reagents described in Section 3.4.1. When acyl halides are used, some provision for neutralizing the hydrogen halide is necessary, because it will otherwise react with the reagent amine to form the corresponding salt. Acid anhydrides give rapid acylation of most amines and are convenient if available. The Schotten-Bauman conditions, which involve shaking an amine with excess anhydride or acyl chloride and an alkaline aqueous solution, provide a very satisfactory method for preparation of simple amides. 

Simple amides are satisfactory protective groups only if the rest of the molecule can resist the vigorous acidic or alkaline hydrolysis necessary for their removal. For this reason, only amides that can be removed under mild conditions have been found useful as amino-protecting groups. Phthalimides are used to protect primary amino groups. The phthalimides can be cleaved by treatment with hydrazine. This reaction proceeds by initial nucleophilic addition at an imide carbonyl, followed by an intramolecular acyl transfer. 

Aldol reactions of simple amide enolates give poor stereoselection. Stimulated by the interest in /3-lactams, the stereochemistry of aldol reactions of chiral magnesium enolates of /3-lactams has been studied . The best results have been obtained with 6,6-dibromopenams 85 (equation 108). After bromine-magnesium exchange with MeMgBr,... 

The combinatorial reactions chosen for the novel amines were amide bond formation and sulfonamide formation. The novel carboxylic acids were derivatized to simple amides. For the amine reactions, we chose two simple carboxylic acids (propionic acid and benzoic acid) and two simple sulfonyl chlorides (methyl-sulfonyl chloride and benzenesulfonyl chloride) as the capping groups. Propyl amine and benzylamine were chosen as the capping groups to react with the novel carboxylic acids. Because only one reactant will be variable, these combinatorial libraries were essentially 1 x N libraries, where the one reactant was a simple reactant and the N component is the novel amines or acids. 

An illustrative example of a simple amide is provided by the structure of the zirconium dimethylamide in Figure 6.1, which shows that it is dimerized through two bridging-NMe2 ligands whereas in the vapor phase it has a monomeric structure with tetrahedrally coordinated zirconium. The dimeric structure may also be contrasted with that of [Ti(NMe2)4] which is a monomer in the crystal phase. ... 

Amide functions are very important linkages in natural compounds (e.g., in proteins) and some simple amides are used in industry. Furthermore, numerous herbicides contain amide groups (Montgomery, 1997). Generally an amide bond is defined as ... 

Cnidaria (coelenterates) have the simplest known nervous system. Simple amidated tetrapeptides, some of which are also found in molluscs, are among their neurotransmitters.331 EGRFamide and l-3- phenyllactyl-LRNamide are found in some sea anemones.332 When a hydra (Fig. 1-13) is cut into two pieces, one containing a head and one a foot, each piece reforms the missing end. The decapeptide head activator (Table 30-5) diffuses upward from the foot end and induces formation of a head. Similarly, a hormone produced by head cells... 

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