For the efficient approach to medicinally important α-branched 3-acyltetramic acids, the key reaction of O- to C- acyl rearrangement using α-amino-acid-derived 4-O-acyltetramic acids was extensively examined in the presence of various metal salts. Use of CaCl(2) or NaI dramatically changed the results in the reaction efficiency and rapidly brought about the desired α-branched 3-acyltetramic acids in markedly improved yields. We also discuss an epimerization at C5 stereocenter under the rearrangement conditions as well as the tolerance for structural variation at C3 and C5. In addition to the preceding success in the total synthesis of new cytotoxic tetramic acid, penicillenol A(1), this methodology could be also applied to the first total synthesis of penicillenol A(2).

Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) has recently received much attention for nanoscale electronic and photonic applications. To explore the intrinsic properties and enhance the performance of MoS2-based field-effect transistors, thorough understanding of extrinsic effects such as environmental gas and contact resistance of the electrodes is required. Here, we report the effects of environmental gases on the transport properties of back-gated multilayered MoS2 field-effect transistors. Comparisons between different gases (oxygen, nitrogen, and air and nitrogen with varying relative humidities) revealed that water molecules acting as charge-trapping centers are the main cause of hysteresis in the transfer characteristics. While the hysteresis persisted even after pumping out the environmental gas for longer than 10 h at room temperature, it disappeared when the device was cooled to 240 K, suggesting a considerable increase in the time constant of the charge trapping/detrapping at these modestly low temperatures. The suppression of the hysteresis or instability in the easily attainable temperature range without surface passivation is highly advantageous for the device application of this system. The humidity dependence of the threshold voltages in the transfer curves indicates that the water molecules dominantly act as hole-trapping centers. A strong dependence of the on-state current on oxygen pressure was also observed.

This article is a full account of the work exploring the potential utility of catalytic enantioselective amide allylation of various isatins using indium-based chiral catalysts. A survey of various isatin substrates and NH-containing stannylated reagents revealed that the reaction has a remarkably wide scope to result in extremely high yields and enantioselectivities (up to >99 %, 99 % ee) of variously substituted homoallylic alcohols. Several mechanistic investigations demonstrated that the substrate-reagent hydrogen-bond interaction plays a critical role in the formation of the key transition states to result in enhanced catalytic reaction. The success of this approach allowed convenient access to chiral 2-oxindoles spiro-fused to the α-methylene-γ-butyrolactone functionality and their halogenated derivatives in almost enantiopure forms, thus highlighting the general utility of this synthetic method to deliver a large variety of antineoplastic drug candidates and pharmaceutically meaningful compounds.

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The first total synthesis of antibacterial epicoccarine A isolated from a fungus Epicoccum sp. has been accomplished in 10 steps along with synthetic elaboration of its C5-epimer, highlighting the utility of O- to C-acyl rearrangement of a 4-O-acyltetramic acid derivative. Comparison of spectroscopic properties and specific optical rotations of the synthetic samples with those reported for authentic material has clearly indicated the unspecified absolute stereochemistry of this natural product to be 5S.

A remarkably effective method allowing an extremely high enantioselective synthesis of the spiro-fused 2-oxindole/α-methylene-γ-butyrolactones is described. The key strategy lies in the use of indium-catalyzed asymmetric amide allylation of N-methyl isatin with functionalized allylstannanes, which can lead to the antineoplastic spirocyclic lactones in almost enantiopure forms.

Quantitative evaluation of Förster-type fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) was undertaken by statistical investigations on perylene-cored anthracene dendrimers.