Synthesis of chiral disulfides: potential reagents for enantioselective sulfurization

Abstract

Synthesis of chiral phosphorothioates for use as antisense oligonucleotides might benefit from the use of chiral disulfides. This paper reports the synthesis of chiral analogs of phenylacetyl disulfide and of 5-methyl-3H-1,2,4-dithiazol-3-one from the same set of 2-arylalkanoic acids. The X-ray crystal structures of the disulfides derived from (R) and [S]-2-phenylpropanoic acid establish the stereochemistry and the helicity of these materials, and density functional theory calculations suggest that the high specific rotations can be due to preferred retention of this helicity in solution. Chiral HPLC showed that the final products were formed with enantiomeric purities from 86.1% to>99.9%.