Synthesis and antipicornavirus activity of (R)- and (S)-1-[5-(4′-chlorobiphenyl-4-yloxy)-3-methylpentyl]-3-pyridin-4-yl-imidazolidin-2-one

The new pyridyl imidazolidinone derivative, 1-[5-(4′-chlorobiphenyl-4-yloxy)-3-methylpentyl]-3-pyridin-4-yl-imidazolidin-2-one (±)-1a, was synthesized and found to have an excellent antiviral activity against EV71 (IC50 = 0.009 μM). Therefore, both the enantiomers, (S)-(+)-1a and (R)-(−)-1a, have been prepared starting from readily available monomethyl (R)-3-methylglutarate (7) as a useful chiral building block and their antiviral activity was evaluated in a plaque reduction assay. Interestingly, we observed that the enantiomer (S)-(+)-1a was 10-fold more active against enterovirus71 (EV71) (IC50 = 0.003 μM) than the corresponding enantiomer (R)-(−)-1a (IC50 = 0.033 μM). Similar results were found against all five strains (1743, 2086, 2231, 4643, and BrCr) of EV71 tested. This demonstrated that the absolute configuration of the chiral carbon atom at the 3-position of the alkyl linker considerably influenced the anti-EV71 activity of these pyridyl imidazolidinones.