Anomeric effects versus steric hindrance to ionic solvation in protonated glucosylanilines and cyclohexylanilines

The so-called reverse anomeric effect is the preference of cationic substituents for the equatorial position on a pyranose ring, but it is not consistent with current theories of molecular structure or with previous studies designed to test it. To probe this further, the N-protonation-induced shifts of the anomeric equilibrium in a series of N-(tetra-O-methylglucopyranosyl)anilines have been measured with high precision through an NMR titration method that compares basicities of alpha and beta anomers in a mixture of the two. For comparison, the N-protonation-induced shifts of the cis/trans equilibrium in N-(4-tert-butylcyclohexyl)anilines have also been measured by this same method. In both series, there is a shift of the equilibrium toward equatorial upon N-protonation, consistent with steric hindrance to ionic solvation. This shift is smaller for the glucosylanilines than for the cyclohexylanilines, consistent with an enhancement of the normal anomeric effect that counters the steric hindrance and reduces the shift toward the equatorial beta anomer. Moreover, the shift toward equatorial increases slightly but detectably with electron-withdrawing substituents on the cyclohexylaniline, which fine-tune the steric hindrance to ionic solvation. In contrast, the shift decreases for the glucosylanilines. This is consistent with an enhancement of the normal anomeric effect due to a more localized positive charge, rather than with a reverse anomeric effect. These results thus define the substituent dependence of the anomeric effect.