H. G. Bonacorso et al. / Tetrahedron Letters 57 (2016) 4568–4573
4569
Cl
R
OH
Fe
-e-
Fe
O
N
N
Figure 3. One-electron oxidation from the two electrons located in the hybridized
iron orbital must result in the cation radical.
HN
N
Fe
N
N
Fe
Fe
O
O
R
R
1
Ferroquine
Anti-malarial)
1,1'-Bis(oxazolinyl)ferrocenes
O
O
N
N
Ferrocifen
(
(Assymmetric catalyst)
CO Me
MeO
Me
O
Me
Me
(
Anti-cancer drug)
2
O
O
NH
2
NHR1
R
N
3
Me
Me
Δ
R
Me
3a'
Figure 1. Organic compounds ferrocenyl substituted.
N
H
R
N
H
1
2a
4
0
Scheme 1. Pyrrolo[3,4-d]pyridazinones synthesis from pyrrole 3 .
Results and discussion
We recently developed a new methodology to obtain pyrrolo
O
O
[
3,4-d]pyridazinones, by employing vinyl azides 1 and 1,3-dike-
MeO
Fe
Me
2
CO Me
0
tone 2a as starting materials. The pyrrole intermediate 3a was
β
α
Fe
O
2
a
2a
N
3
Me
obtained by introducing two carbonyl functions at the 3- and
-positions, which in a subsequent step undergo a cyclization reac-
Me
a'
0
%
N
H
β
MeO
4
Fe
1a
3
α
Me
3a
N
H
tion with dinucleophiles in order to furnish the desired fused hete-
O
rocyclic system 4 (Scheme 1).29
Thus, based on previous results, initially we tried to obtain a
Scheme 2. Unexpected pyrrole 3a formation.
0
29
similar pyrrole 3a by our reported reaction conditions, but when
the reaction was carried out employing the ferrocenylazide 1a, the
unexpected new pyrrole 3a was isolated with a reverse substitu-
Since the best yield obtained through conventional heating was
low (Table 1, entry 9), the same solvents were tested under ultra-
sound and microwave irradiation (Table 2). To our surprise, DCE
under MW irradiation greatly improved the product conversion
in only 30 min, furnishing compound 3a at a 70% yield (Table 2,
entry 11). The ultrasound cavitation process was less efficient,
resulting only in traces of 3a (entries 14 and 15). Other solvents
or a solvent-free system did not result in yield improvements
tion pattern (a-methoxycarbonyl, b-ferrocenyl—Scheme 2). The
observed regioselectivity at the 2- and 3-positions for the synthesis
of a pyrrole ring encouraged us to explore the scope of this reaction
using six examples of non-symmetrical 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds.
Starting from the synthesis of pyrroles, the preliminary investi-
gation employed methyl 2-azido-3-ferrocenyl acrylate (1a), previ-
3
8
3
7
ously prepared, and 2,4-pentanedione (2a) as substrates. We
investigated different temperatures, times, solvents, and conven-
tional or alternative heating sources—representative results are
summarized in Table 1. In our first tests, no desired cyclization pro-
duct 3a was obtained when the reaction was performed in polar
solvents like MeOH or EtOH (entries 3 and 4), or apolar solvents
like toluene or THF (entries 1, 2, 5, and 6).
(
Table 2, entries 1–7 and 13). The difficulty of obtaining the regios-
elective pyrrole 3a from diketones, even with the use of catalysts,
2
2h,31
has been described in the literature.
The synthetic scope of the reaction was expanded to some non-
symmetrical 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds (2b–h) and methyl 2-
azido-3-ferrocenyl acrylate (1a), which led to the formation of pyr-
roles 3b–g, as shown in Table 3. Upon employing trifluoromethyl
However, when dichloroethane was used as solvent, under
reflux for 8 h, compound 3a was obtained at a yield of only 8%
entry 8). Further investigation revealed that the yield of 3a could
be improved to a maximum of 40% when DCE is used under reflux
for 16 h (entry 9), but longer reaction times showed us significantly
decrease the yield due to the decomposition of the possible
products.
(
2b) or phenyl (2c) substituted 1,3-diketones, poor yields were
obtained for the respective pyrroles 3b and 3c (entries 2 and 3).
These non-symmetrical 1,3-diketones only furnish the product of
a C–N bond formation at reasonable yields with a less hindered
acetyl group. When b-keto esters such as ethyl acetoacetate (2d)
(
were employed,
a slight yield improvement was observed,
although a small amount of the starting materials was recovered.
Precursor compounds like thioester (2e), amide (2f), and 4 -chlor-
oanilide (2g) have been successfully inserted at the C-4 position of
the pyrrole, and provide the substituted products 3e, 3f, and 3g,
respectively, at moderate to good yields (entries 5, 6, and 7). Only
for ethyl 3-oxohexanoate (2h) the formation of the pyrrole 3h was
The X-ray diffraction of the structure of 3a is shown in Figure 4,
which illustrates and confirms the structure of the pyrrole ring
with the presence of a ester function, the ferrocenyl substituent,
a ketone function and the methyl group at the 2-, 3-, 4-, and
0
-position, respectively.39
5
O
Me
N
H
NH
OH
F
Me
O
O
N
S
N
F
O
O
N
O
2
CO H
Me
N
N
Me
HO
HO
2
C
O
Me
2
CO H
Vonoprazan
Acid blocker)
HO
Atorvastatin
Cholesterol lowering drug)
Tolmetin
(Anti-inflammatory)
(
Bhimamycin D
(
(Antibiotic)
Figure 2. Examples of pyrrole-based commercial drugs.