Electrocatalytic three-component reactions: synthesis of tellurium-containing oxazolidinone for anticancer agents

Abstract

Synthesis of organotellurium compounds is crucial in pharmaceutical sciences. Herein, a novel and efficient electrochemically catalyzed multicomponent reaction of propargylamide or propargylamine with CO₂ and ditellurium has been developed, and a variety of tellurium-containing 2-oxazolidinones were synthesized for the first time to the best of our knowledge with satisfactory yields under mild conditions. In addition, the resulting tellurium-containing 2-oxazolidinones were tested for in vitro anticancer activity by using the MTT assay against various types of human cancer cells. Compound 5e showed better antitumor activity than did the other oxazolidinone and selenium-containing oxazolidinone compounds. These findings have provided new synthetic strategies for organotellurium compounds and have shown a new perspective for the study of the biological activity of chalcogen-containing organic compounds.