Diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) calculations are performed on the monocyclic and bicyclic forms of m-benzyne, which are the equilibrium structures at the CCSD(T) and CCSD levels of coupled cluster theory. We employed multiconfiguration self-consistent field trial wave functions which are constructed from a carefully selected eight-electrons-in-eight-orbitals complete active space [CAS(8,8)], with c...

A stereoselective synthesis of (+)-norrisolide is presented. This natural product belongs to a family of marine spongiane diterpenes the structure of which is characterized by a fused gamma-lactone-gamma-lactol ring system attached to a bicyclic hydrophobic core. Our studies led to the development of a expedient synthesis of such gamma-lactone-gamma-lactol motifs based on ring expansion of a fu...

Reaction of 2-(methyl-sulfan-yl)pyrimidin-4-amine with the 5-(methoxy-vinyl-idene) derivative of Meldrum's acid and subsequent heating of the product in Dowtherm fluid yielded the title compound, C(8)H(7)N(3)OS, which was proven to contain a bicyclic 4H-pyrimido[1,6-a]pyrimidine system. All non-H atoms of the mol-ecule are coplanar within 0.15 Å. The bond-length distribution in the bicyclic cor...

AmonoidM is called surjunctive if every injective cellular automata with finite alphabet over M is surjective. We show that all finite monoids, all finitely generated commutative monoids, all cancellative commutative monoids, all residually finite monoids, all finitely generated linear monoids, and all cancellative one-sided amenable monoids are surjunctive. We also prove that every limit of ma...

The study of Pd-catalysed cyclisation reactions of alkenols using different catalytic systems is reported. These transformations affect the stereoselective construction of mono- and/or bicyclic oxaheterocyclic derivatives depending on a starting alkenol. The substrate scope and proposed mechanism of Pd-catalysed cyclisation reactions are also discussed. Moreover, the diastereoselective Pd-catal...

In this article, new metal-mediated cyclization and reductive coupling reactions of bicyclic olefins with alkynes are described. Oxabicyclic alkenes undergo cyclization with alkyl propiolates at 80 °C catalyzed by nickel complexes to give benzocoumarin derivatives in high yields. The reaction of bicyclic alkenes (oxaand azacyclic alkenes) with alkyl propiolates at room temperature in the presen...

In this paper, a [2.2.1] bicyclic core is applied as a peptidomimetic scaffold capable of reproducing the structural relationship between the critical residues of the Tat protein, in an effort to create small molecules capable of binding to TAR RNA and inhibiting the Tat/TAR interaction. A systematic twenty-member panel mimicking an Arginine-Aspartic acid (R-D) moiety was synthesized and the ab...

A new strategy is described to generate bicyclic peptides that incorporate non-peptidic backbone elements starting from recombinant polypeptide precursors. These compounds are produced via a one-pot, two-step sequence, in which peptide macrocyclization by means of a bifunctional oxyamine/1,3-amino-thiol synthetic precursor is followed by intramolecular disulfide formation between the synthetic ...

The sesquiterpene cyclase aristolochene synthase from Penicillium roquefortii (PR-AS) has evolved to catalyse with high specificity (92%) the conversion of farnesyl diphosphate (FDP) to the bicyclic hydrocarbon (+)-aristolochene, the natural precursor of several fungal toxins. Here we report that PR-AS converts the unnatural FDP isomer 7-methylene farnesyl diphosphate to (+)-aristolochene via t...