Cyclodextrins and Radical Chemistry: a Successful Match

Trabajo presentado en el WG4/WG2 Meeting COST Action CM1201 celebrado en Kildare (Irlanda) del 23 al 25 de julio de 2015.Nowadays there is a great interest to design new drug carrier systems for their applications in medical research for the treatment of a wide variety of diseases. In this sense, cyclodextrins (CDs) are considered potentially nanocarriers because of their ability to encapsulate biomolecules in their internal cavity. Thus, an important effort to modify and improve their chemophysical properties have been made. However, selective modifications in these macrostructures are not easy to carry out due to the torus shape and the large number of hydroxyl groups. Based on our previous studies related with the intramolecular 1,8-hydrogen atom transfer (1,8-HAT) reactions in Hexp-(1-4)-Hexp disaccharides systems (e.g., beta-maltose), we wondered whether this radical protocol might be suitably deployed in more complex carbohydrate systems such as CDs where the glucose units are linked in similar fashion. The extension and scope of this radical methodology not only to monoalcohols but also to diols and peralcohols derived from CDs will be discussed in this lecture.Peer Reviewe