Diastereoselective 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of cyclopropenes to acenaphthenequinone azomethine ylides

A diastereoselective 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of azomethine ylides generated from acenaphthylene-1,2-dione (or aceantrylene-1,2-dione) and amino acids with 1,2-diphenylcyclopropenes has been developed. As a result, cyclopropa[a]pyrrolizidines and 3-azabicyclo[3.1.0]hexanes spiro-fused to acenaphthylen-1(2H)-one and aceanthrylen-1(2H)-one fragments were obtained for the first time. Based on DFT calculations at M11/cc-pVDZ level of theory, a concerted mechanism of cycloaddition was proposed to explain the observed diastereoselectivity. The cytotoxic activity of newly synthesized compounds against human erythroleukemia (K562) and human cervical carcinoma (HeLa) cell lines was evaluated in vitro by MTS-assay.