Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Carlos A M Afonso.
Preferential Rh(II) carbenoid intramolecular C-H versus O-H insertion derived from alpha-diazo-acetamides can be achieved in water by using an appropriate combination of the catalyst and amide groups, which creates a larger hydrophobic environment around the reactive carbenoid center.
New chiral ionic liquids can be prepared simply by combining the tetra-n-hexyl-dimethylguanidinium cation with readily available chiral anions and used as an asymmetric inducing agent as demonstrated for catalytic Rh(II) carbenoid C-H insertion and Sharpless dihydroxylation.
New efficient chiral auxiliaries for dynamic kinetic resolution (DKR) of bromides into amines are proposed, based on a theoretical rationalisation of known literature results. One example was synthesized and tested, affording diastereoselectivities up to 100%. Several results of DKR reactions are known, based on oxazolidinone or imidazolidinone units as chiral auxiliaries. Nevertheless, their behaviour was not fully understood until a recent paper that we published. We now used our proposed mechanism to rationalize the behaviour of other similar chiral auxiliaries and to propose small structure changes in imidazolidinone rings which could largely improve their performance. We could show that the good performance of these molecules as chiral auxiliaries for DKR reactions where bromine is the leaving group and a primary or secondary amine is the nucleophile is due, in a first step, to the formation of a hydrogen bond between the amine and the ring carbonyl oxygen and, in a second step, to the strong electrostatic interaction between the leaving bromide and the carbonyl oxygen in the C-3 substituent. Considering the behaviour of this substituent which rotates to minimize the electrostatic repulsion with the bromide when reaching the transition state, we proposed the introduction of a second substituent in the C-4 position of the imidazolidinone ring, which prevents such rotation, thus increasing the energy difference between the transition states of the two distereoisomers. With such an auxiliary we were able to increase the best de known in literature (88%), when benzylamine is used as nucleophile, to 99, or even 100%, when iodide replaces the bromide in the substrate.
Water is an efficient solvent for the Rh2(OAc)4 catalysed intramolecular C-H insertion of a range of diazo substrates without competitive water insertion. Due to the high solubility and stability of the catalyst in water, the catalyst can be efficiently reused.
The combination of ionic liquids (ILs) as solvents in the asymmetric Sharpless dihydroxylation (AD) with the use of scCO(2) in the separation process allows a very simple, efficient, clean and robust system for the reuse of the AD catalytic system, which also does not need the use of organic solvents either for the reaction or for the separation of products and allows the isolation of the diol, in high yield and enantiomeric excess and basically without contamination with osmium.
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The use of room-temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) in the Sharpless catalytic asymmetric dihydroxylation (AD) as a cosolvent or replacement of the tert-butanol was studied in detail by screening 11 different RTILs. The AD reaction is faster in 1-n-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate [C(4)mim][PF(6)] as a cosolvent than in the conventional system of tert-butanol/H(2)O. For the range of six substrates tested, comparable or even higher yields and enantiomeric excess (ee) were found using [C(4)mim][PF(6)] or 1-n-octyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate [C(8)mim][PF(6)] compared to the conventional solvent system. Due to high affinity of the catalytic osmium/quiral ligand system to the ionic liquid, the use of ionic liquid/water (biphasic) or ionic liquid/water/tert-butanol (monophasic) solvent systems provides a recoverable, reusable, robust, efficient, and simple system for the AD reaction. Using 1-hexene and [C(4)mim][PF(6)] as RTIL it was possible to reuse the catalytic system for 9 cycles with only a 5% of yield reduction from the first cycle, allowing an overall yield of 87%, TON = 1566, and with similar ee. Additionally, for each cycle, after extraction of the reaction mixture with diethyl ether, the osmium content in the organic phase (containing the AD product) and in the aqueous phase was in the range of the detection limit (<or=3%, <or=7 ppb) and 3-6% of initial amount, respectively. In contrast, the ionic liquid phase retained more than 90% of the osmium content of the previous cycle.
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We studied the reaction between vinyl butyrate and 2-phenyl-1-propanol in acetonitrile catalyzed by Fusarium solani pisi cutinase immobilized on zeolites NaA and NaY and on Accurel PA-6. The choice of 2-phenyl-1-propanol was based on modeling studies that suggested moderate cutinase enantioselectivity towards this substrate. With all the supports, initial rates of transesterification were higher at a water activity (a(w)) of 0.2 than at a(w) = 0.7, and the reverse was true for initial rates of hydrolysis. By providing acid-base control in the medium through the use of solid-state buffers that control the parameter pH-pNa, which we monitored using an organo-soluble chromoionophoric indicator, we were able, in some cases, to completely eliminate dissolved butyric acid. However, none of the buffers used were able to improve the rates of transesterification relative to the blanks (no added buffer) when the enzyme was immobilized at an optimum pH of 8.5. When the enzyme was immobilized at pH 5 and exhibited only marginal activity, however, even a relatively acidic buffer with a pK(a) of 4.3 was able to restore catalytic activity to about 20% of that displayed for a pH of immobilization of 8.5, at otherwise identical conditions. As a(w) was increased from 0.2 to 0.7, rates of transesterification first increased slightly and then decreased. Rates of hydrolysis showed a steady increase in that a(w) range, and so did total initial reaction rates. The presence or absence of the buffers did not impact on the competition between transesterification and hydrolysis, regardless of whether the butyric acid formed remained as such in the reaction medium or was eliminated from the microenvironment of the enzyme through conversion into an insoluble salt. Cutinase enantioselectivity towards 2-phenyl-1-propanol was indeed low and was not affected by differences in immobilization support, enzyme protonation state, or a(w).
Fused polynuclear tetrahydro arenes are synthesised in a fast, simple, high yielding and regiospecific procedure by an intramolecular Friedel-Crafts alkylation in dry media under microwave irradiation of the corresponding 1-bromo-4-arylbutanes immobilised on silica. The observed reactivity is rationalised by molecular modelling studies which suggest the occurrence of a concerted mechanism.
The use of the solvent systems water/ionic liquid or water/ionic liquid/tert-butanol provides a recoverable, reusable, robust and simple system for the asymmetric dihydroxylation of olefins, based on the immobilization of the osmium-ligand catalyst in the ionic liquid phase.
The possibility of using room-temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) in bulk (nonsupported) and supported liquid membranes for the selective transport of organic molecules is demonstrated. A systematic selective transport study, in which 1,4-dioxane, propan-1-ol, butan-1-ol, cyclohexanol, cyclohexanone, morpholine, and methylmorpholine serve as a model seven-component mixture of representative organic compounds, and in which four RTILs based on the 1-n-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium cation (n-butyl, n-octyl, and n-decyl) are used together with the anions PF(6)(-) or BF(4)(-), immobilized in five different supporting membranes, confirms that the combination of the selected RTILs with the supporting membranes is crucial to achieve good selectivity for a specific solute. The use of the RTIL 1-n-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate, immobilized in a polyvinylidene fluoride membrane, allows an extremely highly selective transport of secondary amines over tertiary amines (up to a 55:1 ratio). The selective transport of a given solute through the RTIL/membrane system results from the high partitioning of the solute to the liquid membrane phase which, in the case of amines, is rationalized mainly by the formation of a preferential substrate/H[bond]C(2) hydrogen bonding to the imidazolium cation.
A new series [C(n)O(m )mim][X] of imidazolium cation-based room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs), with ether and alcohol functional groups on the alkyl side-chain has been prepared. Some physical properties of these RTILs were measured, namely solubility in common solvents, viscosity and density. The solubility of LiCl, HgCl(2) and LaCl(3) in room temperature ionic liquids was also determined. The features of the solid-liquid phase transition were analysed, namely the glass transition temperature and the heat capacity jump associated with the transition from the non-equilibrium glass to the metastable supercooled liquid. These properties were compared with those reported for the 1-n-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium [C(n )mim][X] series. While the density and solid-liquid phase transition properties are similar for both series, the new RTILs present a considerably lower viscosity and an increased ability to dissolve HgCl(2) and LaCl(3) (up to 16 times higher).
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