Cu-Catalyzed Chan-Evans-Lam Coupling Reactions of 2-Nitroimidazole with Aryl Boronic Acids: An Effort toward New Bioactive Agents against S. pneumoniae.

The coupling of phenylboronic acids with poorly-activated imidazoles is studied as a model system to explore the use of copper-catalyzed Chan-Evans-Lam (CEL) coupling for targeted C-N bond forming reactions. Optimized CEL reaction conditions are reported for four phenanthroline-based ligand systems, where the ligand 4,5-diazafluoren-9-one (dafo, L2) with 1 molar equivalent of potassium carbonate yielded the highest reactivity. The substrate 2-nitroimidazole (also known as azomycin) has documented antimicrobial activity against a range of microbes. Here N-arylation of 2-nitroimidazole with a range of aryl boronic acids has been successfully developed by copper(II)-catalyzed CEL reactions. Azomycin and a range of newly arylated azomycin derivatives were screened against S. pneumoniae, where 1-(4-(benzyloxy)phenyl)-2-nitro-1H-imidazole (3d) was demonstrated to have a minimal inhibition concentration value of 3.3 μg/mL.