Stereochemical study of tolperisone, a muscle relaxant agent, by circular dichroism and ultraviolet spectroscopy

The stereochemistry of tolperisone, a chiral aryl-alkyl basic ketone was in vestigated by means of circular dichroism (CD) and ultraviolet (UV) spectro scopy. The unusually high optical activity of tolperisone hydrochloride in the n-->pi* region is interpreted by the presence of a chiral conformer in solution. For stereochemical reasons, the C = O group and the aromatic moie ty lack coplanarity by forming an inherently dissymetric chromophore, of M helicity. Similar helicity prevails in the crystal phase, according to the solid-state CD spectrum of (-)-tolperisone HCl salt. The chirality rule pro posed by Snatzke for nonplanar benzoyl chromophores predicts the absolute c onfiguration of (-)-tolperisone hydrochloride to be R, in agreement with ot her alpha -methyl-beta -aminoketones. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.