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Phosphine oxides and related phosphorus-containing functional groups such as phosphonates and phosphinates are established structural motifs that are still underrepresented in today’s drug discovery projects, and only few examples can be found among approved drugs. In this account, the physicochemical and in vitro properties of phosphine oxides and related phosphorus-containing functional groups are reported and compared to more commonly used structural motifs in drug discovery. Furthermore, the impact on the physicochemical properties of a real drug scaffold is exemplified by a series of phosphorus-containing analogs of imatinib. We demonstrate that phosphine oxides are highly polar functional groups leading to high solubility and metabolic stability but occasionally at the cost of reduced permeability. We conclude that phosphine oxides and related phosphorus-containing functional groups are valuable polar structural elements and that they deserve to be considered as a routine part of every medicinal chemist’s toolbox.

The eco-friendly and highly diastereoselective synthesis of substituted cis-2,6-piperidines and cis-2,6-tetrahydropyrans is described. The key step of this method is the iron-catalyzed thermodynamic equilibration of 2-alkenyl 6-substituted piperidines and 2-alkenyl 6-substituted tetrahydropyrans allowing the isolation of enriched mixtures of the most stable cis-isomers.

Mechanistic aspects of allylic substitutions with iridium catalysts derived from phosphoramidites by cyclometalation were investigated. The determination of resting states by (31)P NMR spectroscopy led to the conclusion that the cyclometalation process is reversible. A novel, one-pot procedure for the preparation of (pi- allyl)Ir complexes was developed, and these complexes were characterised by X-ray crystal structure analyses and spectral data. They are fully active catalysts of the allylic substitution reaction. DFT calculations on the allyl complexes, transition states of the allylic substitution and product olefin complexes gave further mechanistic insight.

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A myriad of natural and/or biologically active products include nitrogen- and oxygen-containing saturated heterocycles, which are thus considered as attractive scaffolds in the drug discovery process. As a consequence, a wide range of reactions has been developed for the construction of these frameworks, much effort being specially devoted to the formation of substituted tetrahydropyrans and piperidines. Among the existing methods to form these heterocycles, the metal-catalyzed heterocyclization of amino- or hydroxy-allylic alcohol derivatives has emerged as a powerful and stereoselective strategy that is particularly interesting in terms of both atom-economy and ecocompatibility. For a long time, palladium catalysts have widely dominated this area either in Tsuji-Trost reactions [Pd(0)] or in an electrophilic activation process [Pd(II)]. More recently, gold-catalyzed formation of saturated N- and O-heterocycles has received growing attention because it generally exhibits high efficiency and diastereoselectivity. Despite their demonstrated utility, Pd- and Au-complexes suffer from high costs, toxicity, and limited natural abundance, which can be barriers to their widespread use in industrial processes. Thus, the replacement of precious metals with less expensive and more environmentally benign catalysts has become a challenging issue for organic chemists. In 2010, our group took advantage of the ability of the low-toxicity and inexpensive FeCl3 in activating allylic or benzylic alcohols to develop iron-catalyzed N- and O-heterocylizations. We first focused on N-heterocycles, and a variety of 2,6-disubstituted piperidines as well as pyrrolidines were synthesized in a highly diastereoselective fashion in favor of the cis-compounds. The reaction was further extended to the construction of substituted tetrahydropyrans. Besides triggering the formation of heterocycles, the iron salts were shown to induce a thermodynamic epimerization, which is the key to reach the high diastereoselectivities observed in favor of the most stable cis-isomers. It is worth noting that spiroketals could be prepared by using this method, which was successfully applied to a synthetic approach toward natural products belonging to the bistramide family. We then turned our attention to heterocycles incorporating two heteroatoms such as isoxazolidines. These frameworks can be found in biologically active natural products, and in addition, they can be transformed into 1,3-amino alcohols, which are of importance in organic chemistry. The use of FeCl3·6H2O allowed the access to a large variety of 3,5-disubstituted isoxazolidines from δ-hydroxylamino allylic alcohol derivatives with good yields and diastereoselectivities in favor of the cis-isomer. Recently, a Lewis acid-catalyzed synthesis of six- and five-membered ring carbonates starting from linear tert-butyl carbonates was reported. In some cases, the mild and chemoselective InCl3 was preferred over FeCl3·6H2O to avoid side-product formation. The resulting cyclic carbonates were easily transfor...

A method for the stereoselective synthesis of 2,6-disubstituted piperidines has been developed that is based on the use of an intramolecular iridium-catalyzed allylic substitution as a configurational switch. The procedure allows the preparation of 2-vinylpiperidines with enantiomeric excesses (ee) of greater than 99%. As applications, total syntheses of piperidine alkaloids have been elaborated, most often by using Ru-catalyzed cross-metatheses as a key step for introduction of a side chain. Asymmetric total syntheses of the prosopis alkaloids (+)-prosopinine, (+)-prosophylline, (+)-prosopine, and of the dendrobate alkaloid (+)-241D and its C6 epimer are described.