Metal-Catalyzed Azidation of Tertiary C–H Bonds Suitable for Late-Stage Functionalization

Some enzymes are able to selectively oxidize unactivated aliphatic C-H bonds to form alcohols; however biological systems do not possess enzymes that are able to catalyze the analogous amination of a C-H bond.(1,2) The absence of such chemistry is limiting because nitrogen-containing groups are found in therapeutic agents and clinically useful natural products. In one prominent example, the conversion of the ketone of erythromycin to the –N(Me)CH(2)– group in azithromycin leads to a compound that can be dosed once daily with a shorter length of treatment.(3,4) For such reasons, synthetic chemists are very interested in identifying catalysts that can directly convert C-H bonds to C-N bonds. Most currently used catalysts for C-H bond amination are ill suited for the functionalization of complex molecules, because they require excess substrate or directing groups, harsh reaction conditions, weak or acidic C-H bonds, or reagents containing specialized groups on the nitrogen atom.(5-14) Among C-H bond amination reactions, those forming a carbon-nitrogen bond at a tertiary alkyl group would be particularly valuable, because this linkage is difficult to generate enzymatically from ketone or alcohol precursors.(15) In this manuscript, we report a mild, selective, iron-catalyzed azidation of tertiary C-H bonds with substrate as limiting reagent. The reaction tolerates aqueous environments and is suitable for “late-stage” functionalization of complex structures. Moreover, this azidation creates the ability to install a range of nitrogen functional groups, including those from bio-orthogonal Huisgen “click” cycloadditions and the Staudinger ligation.(16-19) For these reasons, we anticipate this methodology will create opportunities to easily modify natural products, their precursors, and their derivatives to analogs that contain distinct polarity and charge from nitrogen-containing groups. It could also be used to help identify targets of biologically active molecules by creating a point of attachment, for example to fluorescent tags or ‘handles’ for affinity chromatography, directly onto complex molecular structures.