organic compounds
Acta Crystallographica Section C
Crystal Structure
Communications
cally pure chiral amines consistently led to products with no
enantioselectivity at C2. A preliminary report has appeared on
compound (V), establishing proof of the constitution of this
unexpected reaction product, but that report gave no stereo-
chemical information nor any discussion of the supra-
molecular aggregation (Cunico et al., 2006).
ISSN 0108-2701
Five symmetrically substituted
2-aryl-3-benzyl-1,3-thiazolidin-
4-ones: supramolecular structures
in zero, one and two dimensions
Wilson Cunico,a Liliane R. Capri,a C. R. B. Gomes,a
Solange M. S. V. Wardell,a John N. Lowb and Christopher
Glidewellc*
a
Â
Instituto de Tecnologia em Farmacos, Far-Manguinhos, FIOCRUZ, 21041-250 Rio
de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil, bDepartment of Chemistry, University of Aberdeen, Meston
Walk, Old Aberdeen AB24 3UE, Scotland, and cSchool of Chemistry, University of
St Andrews, Fife KY16 9ST, Scotland
Correspondence e-mail: cg@st-andrews.ac.uk
Received 6 December 2006
Accepted 19 December 2006
Online 13 January 2007
There are no direction-speci®c interactions between the
molecules of 3-(2-methoxybenzyl)-2-(2-methoxyphenyl)-1,3-
thiazolidin-4-one, C18H19NO3S, (I); the molecules of 3-(4-
nitrobenzyl)-2-(4-nitrophenyl)-1,3-thiazolidin-4-one, C16H13-
N3O5S, (II), are linked by four independent CÐHÁ Á ÁO
hydrogen bonds into complex chains of fused rings. In 3-(4-
methoxybenzyl)-2-(4-methoxyphenyl)-1,3-thiazolidin-4-one,
(III), isomeric with (I), the molecules are linked into sheets by
a combination of CÐHÁ Á ÁO and CÐHÁ Á Áꢀ(arene) hydrogen
bonds, while in 3-(2-nitrobenzyl)-2-(2-nitrophenyl)-1,3-thia-
zolidin-4-one, (IV), isomeric with (II), the sheets are built
from three independent CÐHÁ Á ÁO hydrogen bonds and one
CÐHÁ Á Áꢀ(arene) hydrogen bond, and reinforced by an
aromatic ꢀ±ꢀ stacking interaction. In 3-(2-¯uorobenzyl)-2-
(2-¯uorophenyl)-1,3-thiazolidin-4-one, C16H13F2NOS, (V),
where the 2-aryl ring exhibits orientational disorder, the
molecules are linked into sheets by a combination of CÐ
HÁ Á ÁO and CÐHÁ Á Áꢀ(arene) hydrogen bonds, and the sheets
are linked in pairs, forming bilayers, by an aromatic ꢀ±ꢀ
stacking interaction.
In each of compounds (I)±(V) (Figs. 1±5), atom C2 is a
stereogenic centre; all the compounds, as prepared, are
racemic despite the use of enantiomerically pure l-valine as
the source of the ring N atom. Each compound crystallizes in a
centrosymmetric space group and for each the reference
molecule was selected as one having the S con®guration at C2.
While the amidic portion of the heterocyclic ring is effec-
tively planar in each compound, overall these rings are all non-
planar. In each of compounds (I)±(IV), the heterocyclic ring
adopts an envelope conformation, folded across the line
C2Á Á ÁC5, while in compound (V), the ring adopts the half-
chair conformation, twisted about the S1ÐC5 bond. The bond
distances and angles present no unusual values. The primary
interest in the structures is the dramatic in¯uence exerted
upon the supramolecular aggregation by the nature and
location of the single substituent in the aryl rings; the struc-
tural variation involves both the types of direction-speci®c
intermolecular interaction present in the supramolecular
structures and the effects of these interactions upon the
dimensionality of these structures. We discuss the structures in
order of increasing complexity, from the isolated molecules in
compound (I) up to the bilayers in compound (V).
Comment
We report here the molecular and supramolecular structures
of ®ve substituted 2-aryl-3-benzyl-1,3-thiazolidin-4-ones, (I)±
(V), all obtained from the reactions of the corresponding aryl
aldehydes with l-valine [(S)-2-amino-3-methylpropionic acid]
and mercaptoacetic acid in the presence of diisopropylethyl-
amine (Cunico et al., 2006). The method of synthesis (Cunico
et al., 2006) represents a one-stage simpli®cation of a
previously published two-stage procedure (Holmes et al.,
1995); in this earlier investigation, it was found that, under the
forcing reaction conditions required, the use of enantiomeri-
o102 # 2007 International Union of Crystallography
DOI: 10.1107/S0108270106055272
Acta Cryst. (2007). C63, o102±o107