A Novel Strategy to Assemble the β-Diketo Acid Pharmacophore of HIV Integrase Inhibitors on Purine Nucleobase Scaffolds.

Claisen condensation, the key step in constructing the pharmacophore of aryl β-diketo acids (DKA) as integrase inhibitors, fails in certain cases of highly electron-deficient heterocycles such as purines. A general synthetic strategy to assemble the DKA motif on the purine scaffold has been accomplished. The synthetic sequence entails a palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling, a C-acylation involving a tandem addition/elimination reaction, and a novel ferric ion-catalyzed selective hydrolysis of an enolic ether in the presence of a carboxylic acid ester.