Harnessing oxetane and azetidine sulfonyl fluorides for opportunities in drug discovery
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Four-membered heterocycles such as oxetanes and azetidines represent attractive and emergent design options in medicinal chemistry due to their small and polar nature and potential to significantly impact the physiochemical properties of drug molecules. The challenging preparation of these derivatives, especially in a divergent manner, has severely limited their combination with other medicinally and biologically important groups. Consequently, there is a substantial demand for mild and effective synthetic strategies to access new oxetane and azetidine derivatives and molecular scaffolds. Here, we report the development and use of oxetane sulfonyl fluorides (OSFs) and azetidine sulfonyl fluorides (ASFs), which behave as precursors to carbocations in an unusual defluorosulfonylation reaction pathway (deFS). The small-ring sulfonyl fluorides are activated under mild thermal conditions (60 °C), and the generated reactive intermediates couple with a broad range of nucleophiles. Oxetane and azetidine heterocyclic, -sulfoximine, and -phosphonate derivatives are prepared, several of which do not have comparable carbonyl analogs, providing new chemical motifs and design elements for drug discovery. Alternatively, a SuFEx pathway under anionic conditions accesses oxetane-sulfur(VI) derivatives. We demonstrate the synthetic utility of novel OSF and ASF reagents through the synthesis of 11 drug analogs, showcasing their potential for subsequent diversification and facile inclusion into medicinal chemistry programs. Moreover, we propose the application of the OSF and ASF reagents as linker motifs and demonstrate the incorporation of pendant groups suitable for common conjugation reactions. Productive deFS reactions with E3 ligase recruiters such as pomalidomide and related derivatives provide new degrader motifs and potential PROTAC linkers.
Date Issued
2024-12-25
Date Acceptance
2024-11-19
Citation
Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2024, 146 (51), pp.35377-35389
ISSN
0002-7863
Publisher
American Chemical Society (ACS)
Start Page
35377
End Page
35389
Journal / Book Title
Journal of the American Chemical Society
Volume
146
Issue
51
Copyright Statement
© 2024 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society. This publication is licensed under
CC-BY 4.0 .
CC-BY 4.0 .
Identifier
https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c14164
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2024-12-12