Complete assignment of the 1H and 13C NMR spectra and conformational analysis of bonellin dimethyl ester

Abstract

The use of a high-field NMR instrument (ν(1 H ) = 500 MHz ) and 2-dimensional NMR techniques (HMQC, HMBC, ROESY) enabled us to fully assign the 1 H and 13 C chemical shifts of bonellin dimethyl ester. The β-pyrrolic proton of C -3 appeared as a broad singlet at δ = 8.93, whereas that of C -8 gave a quartet with δ = 8.69 and 4J H - H = |1.28| Hz . The C -21 methyl protons appeared as a doublet with δ = 3.55 and 4J H - H = |1.07| Hz , while the C -71 methyl protons afforded a doublet with δ = 3.51 and 4J H - H = |1.28| Hz . These results suggest that the β-pyrrolic carbons of ring A belong to the aromatic 18 π-electron [18]diazaannulene delocalization pathway, whereas those of ring B remain outside the aromatic pathway. The broadening of the C -3 β-pyrrolic proton signal can be attributed to the allylic 3- CH - 21- CH 3 coupling and the 3- CH - 21- NH coupling. At 330 K, the tautomeric exchange 21- NH a ⇌ 23- NH b is fast and only one broad signal at δ = -2.49 is seen for these protons. The ROESY spectrum showed clear correlation signals between the 182- CH 3 and 171- CH 2 protons, the 182- CH 3 and 174- CH 3 protons, as well as between the 181- CH 3 and 17- CH protons. These results are compatible with the previous assignment that the absolute configuration at C-17 is S. Application of spin simulation enabled us to determine the chemical shifts and the 3J H - H coupling constants of the 17-propionate side-chain. The 3J H - H -values were used to calculate the populations for the 171-17 and 172-171 rotamers. A relatively high population value of 0.41 was found for the 171-17 g--rotamer, whose methoxycarbonylmethyl group points to the C -15 methine-bridge. This was interpreted as explaining the high tendency of bonellin to form anhydrobonellin. The rotational freedoms in the 13-propionate side-chain were studied by measuring the 1 H NMR spectra of the side-chain at temperatures between 300 and 195 K. At 300 K, the 131- and 132- CH 2 proton signals appeared as deceptively simple triplets, which at 195 K were split into complex multiplets. At 195 K, the signal arising from the 131- CH 2 protons exhibited more splitting, which indicates that these protons have less rotational freedom than the 132- CH 2 protons.