Synthesis of derivatives of methoxydibenzo[b, f]oxepine in the presence of sodium azide

Abstract

Dibenzo[b,f]oxepine is an important scaffold in medicinal chemistry and its derivatives occur in several medicinally important plants. A new approach to methoxydibenzo[b,f]oxepines (15–21) proceeding under mild reaction conditions, has been developed. Notably, the use of sodium azide in the reaction allows access to new substituted dibenzo[b,f]oxepines. In order to study their shape and conformation, the optimum structures of these compounds were calculated using the DFT B3LYP/6-311++G(2d,p) method. A docking simulation was performed to insert compound 20 into the crystal structure of tubulin at the colchicine binding site to determine the probable binding model. The information from this work can be helpful for the investigation of new tubulin polymerization inhibitors exhibiting stronger activity.