Acridine derivatives include many bioactive compounds, which were widely used as antibacterial, 1 anti-inflammatory, 2 antimalarial, deworming, antitumour, 3,4 anti-blood-sucking insects and memory enhancement agents. [5][6][7] Many studies have been carried out on acridine derivatives, in particular, how to modify the 9-and 10-positions of the acridine cores. [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] Many methods have been developed for the preparation of acridine derivatives including the synthesis of the intermediates and changes of catalyst. [16][17][18][19][20][21] We now report a new series of 10-substituted 3,6-diphenyl-9aryl-3,4,6, 7,9,10-hexahydroacridine-1,8(2H,5H)-dione derivatives. They were synthesised from 5-phenylcyclohexane-1,3-dione, aromatic aldehydes and different amines in two steps.
Results and discussionAs shown in the Scheme 1, compounds 1a-d were first obtained by reacting 5-phenylcyclohexane-1,3-dione with aromatic aldehydes in methanol/ethanol (1:1) mixture with good yields and high purity, catalysed by trace l-proline at room temperature for about 4h. The product was reacted with different amines, such as ammonium acetate, aniline, p-chloroaniline and naphthylamine, to prepare compounds 2a-n by refluxing in acetic acid. The crude products were purified by column chromatography with the eluent ethyl acetate/cyclohexane (1:5). The melting points and yields of compounds 1 and 2 are shown in Table 1.All data of MS, IR, 1 H NMR and elemental analysis shown in the experimental section, confirmed the compounds structures. The 1 H NMR data of compounds 1a-d revealed there was a multiplet signal for one proton at δ 7.01-7.14, which were different to the data of 2a-n and can be attributed to the peak of hydroxyl group at 10a-position. The peaks at δ 3.99-5.52 were the characteristic proton shifts of the 9-position, which also existed in 1 H NMR data of compounds 2a-n. They were influenced by aryl group and cyclohexene groups nearby. In all their IR spectra, the absorption bands around 1632-1648 cm -1 can be ascribed to ν (C=O), accordingly. However, there also existed broad absorption bands around 3370-3418 cm -1 in IR spectra of 1a-d that may be ascribed to ν (O-H), which was not found in the IR spectra of 2a-n.We also obtained the single crystal of 1b and its molecular structure was confirmed by the single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. The ORTEP diagram in Fig. 1 shows that a threemembered xanthene ring formed with the hydroxyl group at the 10a-position and benzyl ring at 9-position in compound 1b. That confirmed the analysis results of the spectra.