Repairing damaged DNA is essential for an organism's survival. UV damage endonuclease (UVDE) is a DNA-repair enzyme that can recognize and incise different types of damaged DNA. We present the structure of Sulfolobus acidocaldarius UVDE on its own and in a pre-catalytic complex with UV-damaged DNA containing a 6-4 photoproduct showing a novel 'dual dinucleotide flip' mechanism for recognition o...

A thermal [2 + 2] cycloaddition reaction of allene-ynes has been used to transform chiral non-racemic allenyl oxindoles into chiral non-racemic spirooxindoles containing an alkylidene cyclobutene moiety. The enantiomeric excesses were determined by chiral lanthanide shift NMR analysis and the transfer of chiral information from the allene to the spirooxindole was found to be greater than 95%.

A novel and convenient organocatalytic tandem reaction has been developed for the asymmetric assembly of saturated aldehydes (or enals), nitroolefins and isatins to produce six-membered oxa-spirooxindole backbones bearing four contiguous stereogenic centers and multiple functional groups with high stereoselectivity.

A mild and practical synthesis of spirooxindole [1,3]oxazino derivatives from N-substituted isatins and 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds with pyridine derivatives is reported. The reactions provided good to excellent yields. Further exploration of the molecular diversity of these compounds is demonstrated through Diels-Alder reactions.

A stereoselective cyclization between alkylidene oxindoles and 5-methoxyoxazoles has been developed using catalytic titanium(IV) chloride (as low as 5 mol %) to afford spiro[3,3'-oxindole-1-pyrrolines] in excellent yield (up to 99%) and diastereoselectivity (up to 99:1). Using a chiral scandium(III)-indapybox/BArF complex affords enantioenriched spirooxindole-1-pyrrolines where a ligand-induced...

Drug-like spirocyclic scaffolds have been prepared by fusing fully functionalized pyrrolidine with oxindoles in an approach based on 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition. Reaction between aziridine and 3-ylideneoxindole generated diverse spirooxindole-pyrrolidines in good yield (up to 95%) with high diastereoselectivity (up to >20:1). The reaction also proceeded smoothly with several other synthetically u...

A convenient and efficient method for the constructions of 3-spirooxindole derivatives or 3,3'-disubstituted oxindoles has been developed from one-pot reactions of isatins, hydrazides or aromatic amines, 2-(bromomethyl)acrylic ester and tin powder in the presence of a catalytic amount of Brønsted or Lewis acid. The method avoids the use of toxic stannanes and allows easy operation. It is also p...

Herein, we report our preliminary results concerning the first promising asymmetric synthesis of highly functionalized 2-oxospiro-[indole-3,4'-(1',4'-dihydropyridine)] via the reaction of an enamine with isatylidene malononitrile derivatives in the presence of a chiral base organocatalyst. The moderate, but promising, enantioselectivity observed (30%-58% ee (enantiomeric excess)) opens the door...