Enantioselective Synthesis of Chiral Sulfonimidoyl Fluorides Facilitates Stereospecific SuFEx Click Chemistry

Abstract

Sulfur-centered electrophilic 'warheads' have emerged as key components for chemical proteomic probes through sulfur-exchange chemistry (SuFEx) with protein nucleophiles. Among these functional groups, sulfonimidoyl fluorides (SIFs) stand out for their modifiable sites, tunable electrophilicities, and chiral sulfur-center, presenting exciting possibilities for new covalent chemical probes. However, the synthetic access to chiral SIFs has been a challenge, limiting their exploration and applications. In this study, we describe a convenient route to obtain chiral SIFs from readily available sulfenamides via a series of one-pot tandem reactions with high enantiomeric excess (ees). The resulting chiral SIFs were further converted into a diverse array of chiral S(VI) derivatives under mild conditions or in buffer solutions. Most significantly, the specificity of the chiral SIFs in protein ligation experiments underscored the critical role of sulfur-center chirality in the design and screening of more-selective covalent probes and therapeutics.

Keywords: covalent probes; enantioselective hydroxylation; sulfenamide; sulfonimidoyl fluorides; sulfur-exchange chemistry (SuFEx).