Synthesis of pyrrole-imidazole polyamide oligomers based on a copper-catalyzed cross-coupling strategy

Pyrrole-imidazole (Py-Im) polyamides are useful tools for chemical biology and medicinal chemistry studies due to their unique binding properties to the minor groove of DNA. We developed a novel method of synthesizing Py-Im polyamide oligomers based on a Cu-catalyzed cross-coupling strategy. All four patterns of dimer fragments could be synthesized using a Cu-catalyzed Ullmann-type cross-coupling with easily prepared monomer units. Moreover, we demonstrated that pyrrole dimer, trimer, and tetramer building blocks for Py-Im polyamide synthesis were accessible by combining site selective iodination of the pyrrole/pyrrole coupling adduct.