Macrocycle

Macrocycles are often described as molecules and ions containing a ring of twelve or more atoms. Classical examples include the crown ethers, calixarenes, porphyrins, and cyclodextrins. Macrocycles describe a large, mature area of chemistry.

Synthesis The formation of macrocycles by ring-closure is called macrocyclization. The central challenge to macrocyclization is that few bond-forming reactions give large rings. Instead, medium sized rings or polymers tend to form. Early macrocyclizations were achieved ketonic decarboxylations for the preparation of terpenoid macrocycles. So, while Ružička was able to produce various macrocycles, the yields were low. This kinetic problem can be addressed by using high-dilution reactions, whereby intramolecular processes are favored relative to polymerizations. Reactions amenable to high dilution include Dieckmann condensation and related based-induced reactions of esters with remote halides. High dilution ring-closing metathesis (1mg/1mL solvent) was used to prepare muscone in 76% yield.

Some macrocyclizations are achieved using template reactions. Templates are ions, molecules, surfaces etc. that bind and pre-organize reactants, guiding them toward formation of a particular ring size. The crown ethers are often generated in the presence of an alkali metal cation, which organizes the condensing components by complexation. An illustrative macrocyclization is the synthesis of (−)-muscone from (+)-citronellal.

Stereocontrol Macrocyclic stereocontrol refers to the directed outcome of a given intermolecular or intramolecular reaction that is governed by the conformational preference of a macrocycle. Stereocontrol for cyclohexane rings is well established in organic chemistry, in large part due to the axial/equatorial preferential positioning of substituents on the ring. Macrocyclic stereocontrol models the substitution and reactions of medium and large rings in organic chemistry, with remote stereogenic elements providing enough conformational influence to direct the outcome of a reaction. Early assumptions towards macrocycles in synthetic chemistry considered them far too floppy to provide any degree of stereochemical or regiochemical control in a reaction. Investigations in the late 1970s and 1980s challenged this assumption, while several others found crystallographic data and NMR data that suggested macrocyclic rings were not the floppy, conformationally ill-defined species many assumed. The rigidity of a macrocyclic ring depends significantly on the substitution and the overall size. Significantly, even small conformational preferences, such as those envisioned in floppy macrocycles, can profoundly influence the ground state of a given reaction, providing stereocontrol such as in the synthesis of miyakolide. Reaction classes used in synthesis of natural products under the macrocyclic stereocontrol model for obtaining a desired stereochemistry include: hydrogenations such as in neopeltolide and (±)-methynolide, epoxidations such as in (±)-periplanone B and lonomycin A, hydroborations such as in 9-dihydroerythronolide B, enolate alkylations such as in (±)-3-deoxyrosaranolide, dihydroxylations such as in cladiell-11-ene-3,6,7-triol, and reductions such as in eucannabinolide.

Conformational preferences

Macrocycles can access a number of stable conformations, with preferences to reside in those that minimize the number of transannular nonbonded interactions within the ring. Medium rings (8-11 atoms) are the most strained with between 9-13 (kcal/mol) strain energy; analysis of the factors important in considering larger macrocyclic conformations can thus be modeled by looking at medium ring conformations. Conformational analysis of odd-membered rings suggests they tend to reside in less symmetrical forms with smaller energy differences between stable conformations.

Cyclooctane

Conformational analysis of medium rings begins with examination of cyclooctane. Spectroscopic methods have determined that cyclooctane possesses three main conformations: chair-boat, chair-chair, and boat-boat. Cyclooctane prefers to reside in a chair-boat conformation, minimizing the number of eclipsing ethane interactions (shown in blue), as well as torsional strain. The chair-chair conformation is the second most abundant conformation at room temperature, with a ratio of 96:4 chair-boat:chair-chair observed. Substitution positional preferences in the ground state conformer of methyl cyclooctane can be approximated using parameters similar to those for smaller rings. In general, the substituents exhibit preferences for equatorial placement, except for the lowest energy structure (pseudo A-value of -0.3 kcal/mol in figure below) in which axial substitution is favored. The "pseudo A-value" is best treated as the approximate energy difference between placing the methyl substituent in the equatorial or axial positions. The most energetically unfavorable interaction involves axial substitution at the vertex of the boat portion of the ring (6.1 kcal/mol).

These energetic differences can help rationalize the lowest energy conformations of 8 atom ring structures containing an sp2 center. In these structures, the chair-boat is the ground state model, with substitution forcing the structure to adopt a conformation such that non-bonded interactions are minimized from the parent structure. From the cyclooctene figure below, it can be observed that one face is more exposed than the other, foreshadowing a discussion of privileged attack angles (see peripheral attack).

X-ray analysis of functionalized cyclooctanes provided proof of conformational preferences in these medium rings. Significantly, calculated models matched the obtained X-ray data, indicating that computational modeling of these systems could in some cases quite accurately predict conformations. The increased sp2 character of the cyclopropane rings favor them to be placed similarly such that they relieve non-bonded interactions.

Cyclodecane

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