Examination of the reactivity of benzoxaboroles and related compounds with a cis -diol

Benzoxaboroles have been emerging as an interesting and useful scaffold in drug discovery due to their apparently unique reactivity toward diols under physiological conditions. In this work, the reaction of benzoxaborole with the diol-containing, fluorescent dye Alizarin Red S is probed. Steady-state and presteady-state experiments have been conducted for the characterization of the reactions over a wide range of pH. Results indicate that Alizarin Red S reacts with both the boronic (neutral, trigonal) form as well as the boronate (anionic, tetrahedral) form of benzoxaborole in a reaction largely analogous to that previously determined for the simple phenylboronic acid. However, in certain key aspects, the reactivity of the benzoxaborole was found to differ from that of simple phenylboronic acid. The structural origin of these differences has been explored by examination of compounds related to both benzoxaborole and phenylboronic acid. These results may be applied to rational drug discovery efforts aimed at expanding the use of benzoxaboroles in medicine.