Diastereoisomeric singly bridged cyclophosphazene-macrocyclic compounds.

31P NMR spectroscopy and added chiral shift reagent (CSR) or chiral solvating agent (CSA) have been used to show that unsymmetrically substituted singly bridged macrocyclic phosphazene compounds exist as 1:1 diastereoisomers of two racemic mixtures, in contrast to previous work (ref 2) on symmetrically substituted diastereoisomeric analogues, which exist as meso and racemic forms. The cis-ansa cyclotriphosphazatriene-macrocycle, 1, is meso and monosubstitution of the >P(O-macrocycle)Cl group with 2-naphthol gives a racemic product (7), in which the macrocyclic ring exists in a trans-ansa configuration. Reaction of 7 with the di-secondary amine, piperazine, gives an unsymmetrically disubstituted racemic compound (8) having a cis-ansa configuration of the macrocyclic ring. Reaction of 8 with a further quantity of 1 forms a singly bridged derivative (9) with the macrocyclic rings in cis-trans configurations, and further reaction of 9 with pyrrolidine gives compound 10 with the macrocyclic rings in cis-cis configurations. Both 9 and 10 have four stereogenic centers giving rise to diastereoisomeric compounds existing as mixtures of two racemates. The results are consistent with inversion of configuration at phosphorus at each step of the reaction of >P(OR)Cl groups with nucleophile Z (i.e., Z = naphthoxy, piperazino, pyrrolidino) to form >P(OR)Z derivatives.