Atropisomer

Atropisomers are stereoisomers arising because of hindered rotation about a single bond, where energy differences due to steric strain or other contributors create a barrier to rotation that is high enough to allow for isolation of individual conformers. They occur naturally and are important in pharmaceutical design. When the substituents are achiral, these conformers are enantiomers (atropoenantiomers), showing axial chirality; otherwise they are diastereomers (atropodiastereomers). The word atropisomer (άτροπος, , meaning "without turn") was coined in application to a theoretical concept by German biochemist Richard Kuhn for Karl Freudenberg's seminal Stereochemie volume in 1933. Atropisomerism was first experimentally detected in a tetra substituted biphenyl, a diacid, by George Christie and James Kenner in 1922. Michinori Ōki further refined the definition of atropisomers taking into account the temperature-dependence associated with the interconversion of conformers, specifying that atropisomers interconvert with a half-life of at least 1000 seconds at a given temperature, corresponding to an energy barrier of 93 kJ mol−1 (22 kcal mol −1) at 300 K (27 °C). The stability of individual atropisomers is conferred by the repulsive interactions that inhibit rotation. Both the steric bulk and, in principle, the length and rigidity of the bond connecting the two subunits contribute. Commonly, atropisomerism is studied by dynamic nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, since atropisomerism is a form of fluxionality. Inferences from theory and results of reaction outcomes and yields also contribute. Atropisomers exhibit axial chirality (planar chirality). When the barrier to racemization is high, as illustrated by the BINAP ligands, the phenomenon becomes of practical value in asymmetric synthesis. Methaqualone, the anxiolytic and hypnotic-sedative, is a classical example of a drug molecule that exhibits the phenomenon of atropisomerism. Determining the axial stereochemistry of biaryl atropisomers can be accomplished through the use of a Newman projection along the axis of hindered rotation.