Nitrile Alkylations through Sulfinyl-Metal Exchange

摘要

Nitriles play pivotal roles in a diverse range of pharmaceuticals. The nitrile pharmacophore often engages in key hydrogen bonding, as in the blockbuster drug anastrazole (1), in other cases a covalent attachment occurs, as in the anti-diabetic vildagliptin (2, Scheme 1). Syntheses of many nitrile-containing pharmaceuticals, particularly of those bearing quaternary centers, such as anastrazole and the cyclo-hexylnitriles levocabastine (3) and cilomilast (4), typically involve multiple alkylations.