Background: There are many nucleoside metal complexes known. According to observations made, only very few of them reveal their central ion to be co-ordinated by the sugar part of their molecules. The regio- and stereosspecific exchange of the hydroxyl groups at the sugar moiety by chelating units improves its complexation ability and should give access to a new class of chiral ligands.
Results: In this paper we present the synthesis of 3',5'-diamino substituted thymidines with ribo- as well as xylo-configuration and the preparation of copper(II) complexes derived from their corresponding Schiff bases. Starting from thymidine, the amino derivatives were prepared in a three and four step reaction sequence respectively. The absolute configuration of the ligands was proved by the three-bond 1H-1H spin spin coupling constants 3J obtained by NMR-studies. Condensation of the amino derivatives with salicylic aldehydes resulted in the corresponding diimines, which represent a new class of chiral salen-type ligands. All ligands formed uncharged stable copper(II) complexes. The structure of 3',5'-bis(3,5-di-tert-butylsalicylaldiminato)-3',5'-dideoxyxylothymidine-copper(II) could be determined by single crystal X-ray structure analysis. The copper centre in this complex has distorted tetrahedral coordination geometry.
Conclusion: For the synthesis of 3',5'-diamino-3',5'-dideoxy thymidines with xylo- as well as ribo-configuration an effective synthesis pathway has been developed. Their corresponding salicylidene imines form stable coordination compounds with copper(II) ions. They represent the first salen type complexes of nucleosides with this substitution pattern.