No abstract

International audienc

Novel C-ethoxycarbonyl cyclic ketonitrones are synthesized from the Ag- or Cu-catalyzed ring expansion of β-diazo cyclic hydroxylamines. The latter are themselves easily obtained by the addition of lithiated ethyl diazoacetate onto cyclic nitrones. The regioselective metal-catalyzed rearrangement of β-diazo cyclic hydroxylamines proved highly efficient and resulted in a synthetically useful ring expansion to produce 6- or 7-membered ring functionalized nitrones. The outcome of the two steps, i.e. nucleophilic addition of α-diazoesters to nitrones and ring expansion, is a formal nitrone homologation.

A 1,3‐dipolar cycloaddition reaction of carbohydrate‐derived five‐membered cyclic ketonitrones with alkynes and alkenes was developed as an efficient and regioselective process to access highly functionalised isoxazolines and isoxazolidines bearing a quaternary centre α to the nitrogen atom. The latter compounds were used as intermediates for the synthesis of unprecedented ring‐junction‐substituted polyhydroxylated pyrrolizidines and indolizidines. These compounds were evaluated against a panel of glycosidases, and showed moderate but selective inhibition of α‐glucosidases.