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Natural product modification with photoredox catalysis allows for mild, chemoselective access to a wide array of related structures in complex areas of chemical space, providing the possibility for novel structural motifs as well as useful quantities of less abundant congeners. While amine additives have been used extensively as stoichiometric electron donors for photocatalysis, the controlled modification of amine substrates through single-electron oxidation is ideal for the synthesis and modification of alkaloids. Here, we report the conversion of the amine (+)-catharanthine into the natural products (−)-pseudotabersonine, (−)-pseudovincadifformine, and (+)-coronaridine utilizing visible light photoredox catalysis.

The direct trifluoromethylation of (hetero)arenes is a process of high importance to the pharmaceutical industry. Many reagents exist for this purpose and have found widespread use in discovery efforts; however, the step-intensive preparation of these reagents and their corresponding cost have resulted in minimal use of these methods in large-scale applications. For the ready transition of direct trifluoromethylation methodologies to large-scale application, the further development of processes utilizing inexpensive CF3 sources available on a metric ton scale is highly desirable. We report the use of pyridine N-oxide derivatives in concert with trifluoroacetic anhydride to promote a high-yielding and scalable trifluoromethylation reaction. Key mechanistic insights include the observation of electron donor-acceptor complexes in solution as well as a high dependence on photon flux. These observations have culminated in the application of this chemistry on a kilogram scale, demonstrating the utility of this reagent combination for preparative applications.

Chagas disease is caused by the intracellular protozoan parasite Trypanosomal cruzi , and current drugs are lacking in terms of desired safety and efficacy profiles. Following on a recently reported high-throughput screening campaign, we have explored initial structure-activity relationships around a class of imidazole-based compounds. This profiling has uncovered compounds 4c (NEU321) and 4j (NEU704), which are potent against in vitro cultures of T. cruzi and are greater than 160-fold selective over host cells. We report in vitro drug metabolism and properties profiling of 4c and show that this chemotype inhibits the T. cruzi CYP51 enzyme, an observation confirmed by X-ray crystallographic analysis. We compare the binding orientation of 4c to that of other, previously reported inhibitors. We show that 4c displays a significantly better ligand efficiency and a shorter synthetic route over previously disclosed CYP51 inhibitors, and should therefore be considered a promising lead compound for further optimization.