Possible Reactions of Dietary Phenolic Compounds with Salivary Nitrite and Thiocyanate in the Stomach

Foods are mixed with saliva in the oral cavity and swallowed. During staying in the stomach, saliva is contentiously provided to mix with the ingested foods. Because a salivary component nitrite is protonated to produce active nitrous acid at acidic pH, the redox reactions of nitrous acid with phenolic compounds in foods become possible in the stomach. In the reactions, nitrous acid is reduced to nitric oxide (•NO), producing various products from phenolic compounds. In the products, stable hydroxybezoyl benzofuranone derivatives, which are produced from quercetin and its 7-O-glucoside, are included. Caffeic acid, chlorogenic acid, and rutin are oxidized to quinones and the quinones can react with thiocyanic acid derived from saliva producing stable oxathiolone derivatives. 6,8-Dinitrosocatechis are produced from catechins by the redox reaction, and the dinitrocatechins are oxidized further by nitrous acid producing the quinones, which can make charge transfer complexes with the dinitrosocatechin and can react with thiocyanic acid producing the stable thiocyanate conjugates. In this way, various products can be produced by the reactions of salivary nitrite with dietary phenolic compounds, and reactive and toxic quinones formed by the reactions are postulated to be removed in the stomach by thiocyanic acid derived from saliva.

Spiro-fused carbohydrate oxazoline ligands: Synthesis and application as enantio-discrimination agents in asymmetric allylic alkylation

In the present work, we describe a convenient synthesis of spiro-fused D-fructo- and D-psico-configurated oxazoline ligands and their application in asymmetric catalysis. The ligands were synthesized from readily available 3,4,5-tri-O-benzyl-1,2-O-isopropylidene-β-D-fructopyranose and 3,4,5-tri-O-benzyl-1,2-O-isopropylidene-β-D-psicopyranose, respectively. The latter compounds were partially deprotected under acidic conditions followed by condensation with thiocyanic acid to give an anomeric mixture of the corresponding 1,3-oxazolidine-2-thiones. The anomeric 1,3-oxazolidine-2-thiones were separated after successive benzylation, fully characterized and subjected to palladium catalyzed Suzuki–Miyaura coupling with 2-pyridineboronic acid N-phenyldiethanolamine ester to give the corresponding 2-pyridyl spiro-oxazoline (PyOx) ligands. The spiro-oxazoline ligands showed high asymmetric induction (up to 93% ee) when applied as chiral ligands in palladium-catalyzed allylic alkylation of 1,3-diphenylallyl acetate with dimethyl malonate. The D-fructo-PyOx ligand provided mainly the (R)-enantiomer while the D-psico-configurated ligand gave the (S)-enantiomer with a lower enantiomeric excess.