Large-Scale Computation and Prediction of Sulfinate-Mediated C-H Functionalisation Regioselectivity

Sulfinate-mediated radical C–H functionalisation reactions are widely used for the modification and diversification of scaffolds in drug discovery. However, prediction of the regiochemistry in these reactions can be challenging. For a given substrate, there may be multiple sites of reaction, each wi...

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Main Author: Walton, Peter J.
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/80983/
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author Walton, Peter J.
author_facet Walton, Peter J.
author_sort Walton, Peter J.
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Sulfinate-mediated radical C–H functionalisation reactions are widely used for the modification and diversification of scaffolds in drug discovery. However, prediction of the regiochemistry in these reactions can be challenging. For a given substrate, there may be multiple sites of reaction, each with its own unique steric and electronic environment. Here we present Rega, an automated transition state searching program for the prediction of regioselectivity from inexpensive HF/6-31G* activation energies. We show that in a set of 23 compounds, the regioselectivity is correctly identified in 22 cases (reactivity correctly identified for 65/68 potential sites of reaction). The easy-to-use and modular Rega workflow allows reaction exploration of multiple substrates simultaneously, enabling the generation of a synthetic dataset of 490 compounds consisting of 2780 sites with labelled reactivity for this reaction for use in machine learning models. Rega is designed to be readily extensible to other reaction systems and can be applied to many other reaction classes in which a radical intermediate is formed as the regiochemistry determining step. From the generation of this dataset, machine learning was applied to predict regioselectivity in both regression and classification tasks.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T21:05:00Z
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institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
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spelling nottingham-809832025-07-30T04:40:15Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/80983/ Large-Scale Computation and Prediction of Sulfinate-Mediated C-H Functionalisation Regioselectivity Walton, Peter J. Sulfinate-mediated radical C–H functionalisation reactions are widely used for the modification and diversification of scaffolds in drug discovery. However, prediction of the regiochemistry in these reactions can be challenging. For a given substrate, there may be multiple sites of reaction, each with its own unique steric and electronic environment. Here we present Rega, an automated transition state searching program for the prediction of regioselectivity from inexpensive HF/6-31G* activation energies. We show that in a set of 23 compounds, the regioselectivity is correctly identified in 22 cases (reactivity correctly identified for 65/68 potential sites of reaction). The easy-to-use and modular Rega workflow allows reaction exploration of multiple substrates simultaneously, enabling the generation of a synthetic dataset of 490 compounds consisting of 2780 sites with labelled reactivity for this reaction for use in machine learning models. Rega is designed to be readily extensible to other reaction systems and can be applied to many other reaction classes in which a radical intermediate is formed as the regiochemistry determining step. From the generation of this dataset, machine learning was applied to predict regioselectivity in both regression and classification tasks. 2025-07-30 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en cc_by https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/80983/1/Walton%2C%20Peter%2C%2014278442%2C%20Corrections.pdf Walton, Peter J. (2025) Large-Scale Computation and Prediction of Sulfinate-Mediated C-H Functionalisation Regioselectivity. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. Regioselectivity C–H functionalisation drug discovery
spellingShingle Regioselectivity
C–H functionalisation
drug discovery
Walton, Peter J.
Large-Scale Computation and Prediction of Sulfinate-Mediated C-H Functionalisation Regioselectivity
title Large-Scale Computation and Prediction of Sulfinate-Mediated C-H Functionalisation Regioselectivity
title_full Large-Scale Computation and Prediction of Sulfinate-Mediated C-H Functionalisation Regioselectivity
title_fullStr Large-Scale Computation and Prediction of Sulfinate-Mediated C-H Functionalisation Regioselectivity
title_full_unstemmed Large-Scale Computation and Prediction of Sulfinate-Mediated C-H Functionalisation Regioselectivity
title_short Large-Scale Computation and Prediction of Sulfinate-Mediated C-H Functionalisation Regioselectivity
title_sort large-scale computation and prediction of sulfinate-mediated c-h functionalisation regioselectivity
topic Regioselectivity
C–H functionalisation
drug discovery
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/80983/