Aminonaphthalene and aminoquinoline photocages: Meta-effect and photo-release of carboxylic acids and alcohols

Three series of compounds were tested as photocleavable protective groups (photocages), which are derivatives of 1,2-substituted aminonaphthalene 4, 1,3-substituted aminonaphthalene 5, or 5,6-substituted aminoquinolines 6. Their photophysical properties and photochemical reactivity in releasing alcohols and carboxylic acids were investigated. Moreover, mechanism of photochemical reaction was studied computationally and by transient absorption spectroscopy with time-resolution from femtoseconds to milliseconds. Photocages 4 and 5 are generally fluorescent molecules with high ΦF, whereas quinoline 6 is weekly fluorescent due to photoinduced charge transfer. Derivatives 4 release alcohol with low quantum yield (release of methanol from 4d is ΦR = 0.00010 ± 0.00005), but upon prolonged irradiation can be applied in organic synthesis to deprotect both aliphatic and aromatic alcohols. On the contrary, photocages 5 undergo relatively efficient release of carboxylic acids, (release of acetic acid from 5b is ΦR = 0.22 ± 0.01), in accord with the meta-effect in photochemistry, which is our main discovery that is based on the rational design of the chromophore. The photochemical reaction mechanism involves homolytic cleavage on the singlet excited state surface and formation of radicals which were detected by transient spectroscopy. The meta-effect did not promote the heterolytic cleavage as it was the case with aniline chromophores. The subsequent electron transfer delivers naphthalenmethyl carbocation and released carboxylates. The applicability of photocages 5 in organic synthesis was demonstrated on aliphatic and aromatic carboxylic acids. The potential use in biology was suggested due to their very weak photoinduced antiproliferative effect, which was essayed on three human cancer cell lines (MCF-7 breast carcinoma, HCT 116 colon carcinoma, and H460 lung carcinoma).