Kimura Ryota, Ichikawa Satoshi, Katsuyama Akira
Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Hokkaido University, Kita-12, Nishi-6, Kita-ku, Sapporo 060-0812, Japan.
Center for Research and Education on Drug Discovery, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Hokkaido University, Kita-12, Nishi-6, Kita-ku, Sapporo 060-0812, Japan.
Beilstein J Org Chem. 2025 Aug 4;21:1568-1576. doi: 10.3762/bjoc.21.120. eCollection 2025.
pH-Responsive molecular switches and motors are a class of organic molecules whose three-dimensional structure can be changed by acid-base stimuli. To date, pH-responsive molecular switches have been developed using various functional groups, but further advances require expanding the range of pH-responsive systems and discovering new molecular architectures. Here, we investigate the pH-responsive behavior of -disubstituted benzamidine, which generates atropisomers and / isomers. The amidine moiety allows modulation of the C-N and C-N/C-C rotational barriers by protonation, providing a novel approach to control the kinetics of isomerization via pH adjustment. The results showed that protonation of the amidine moiety significantly suppresses both C-N bond rotation and C-N/C-C concerted rotation, demonstrating the potential of -disubstituted benzamidine derivatives as a novel pH-responsive molecular switch.
pH响应性分子开关和分子马达是一类有机分子,其三维结构可通过酸碱刺激发生改变。迄今为止,已利用各种官能团开发出了pH响应性分子开关,但要取得进一步进展,需要扩大pH响应体系的范围并发现新的分子结构。在此,我们研究了生成阻转异构体和/异构体的二取代苯甲脒的pH响应行为。脒基部分可通过质子化调节C-N和C-N/C-C的旋转势垒,为通过调节pH来控制异构化动力学提供了一种新方法。结果表明,脒基部分的质子化显著抑制了C-N键的旋转以及C-N/C-C的协同旋转,证明了二取代苯甲脒衍生物作为新型pH响应性分子开关的潜力。