Synthesis of azetidines and pyrrolidines towards medicinal chemistry and organocatalysis applications

Room temperature iodocyclisation of homoallylamines stereoselectively delivers functionalised 2- (iodomethyl)azetidine derivatives in high yield. Increasing reaction temperature from 20 °C to 50 °C switches the reaction outcome to realise the stereoselective formation of functionalised 3-iodopyrrolidine derivatives. It was shown that these pyrrolidines are formed via thermal isomerisation of the aforementioned azetidines. Primary and secondary amines could be reacted with iodomethyl azetidine derivatives to deliver stable methylamino azetidine derivatives. With subtle changes to the reaction sequences homoallyl amines could be stereoselectively converted to either cis- or trans- substituted 3-amino pyrrolidine derivatives at will. The stereochemical divergent synthesis of cis and trans substituted pyrrolidines supports an ion part, aziridinium, isomerisation pathway for azetidine to pyrrolidine isomerisation. Six azetidine derivative were probed in a zebrafish embryo developmental assay for capacity to illicit morphological changes. The range of effects across the probed molecules demonstrates the suitability of this assay for screening azetidine derivatives. One of the probed molecules, exhibited particularly promising effects in the developmental assay.