[Approach for Producing New 3,3,3-Trifluoropropenylation Reagents: Introduction of a 3,3,3-Trifluoroprop-1-enyl Group for Drug Development]

The chemistry of the 3,3,3-trifluoroprop-1-enyl (TFPE) group has attractive characteristics in medicinal chemistry as a new fluorine motif. However, there are no reports on the properties of this group because it is difficult to construct molecules with it. For the convenient construction of the TFPE group, a new fluorination reagent, CF3CH=CHTMS (1), was developed from commercially available chemicals with easy purification processes and excellent yields. The utility of 1 as a trifluoropropenylation reagent was exhibited in several types of reaction such as the Sonogashira cross-coupling reaction. Furthermore an indometacin analogue bearing a TFPE group showed greater pharmaceutical activity than the original indometacin. This review describes the details of these research studies under three topics: 1) synthesis of 1; 2) Sonogashira cross-coupling reaction of 1 with acetylene, followed by cyclization into an indole ring; and 3) synthesis of an indometacin analogue with a TFPE group.