Phosphine oxides and related phosphorus-containing functional groups such as phosphonates and phosphinates are established structural motifs that are still underrepresented in today’s drug discovery projects, and only few examples can be found among approved drugs. In this account, the physicochemical and in vitro properties of phosphine oxides and related phosphorus-containing functional groups are reported and compared to more commonly used structural motifs in drug discovery. Furthermore, the impact on the physicochemical properties of a real drug scaffold is exemplified by a series of phosphorus-containing analogs of imatinib. We demonstrate that phosphine oxides are highly polar functional groups leading to high solubility and metabolic stability but occasionally at the cost of reduced permeability. We conclude that phosphine oxides and related phosphorus-containing functional groups are valuable polar structural elements and that they deserve to be considered as a routine part of every medicinal chemist’s toolbox.

中文翻译：

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从药物化学家的角度看膦氧化物：与药物发现相关的物理化学和体外参数。

膦氧化物和相关的含磷官能团（例如膦酸酯和次膦酸酯）是已建立的结构基序，在当今的药物开发项目中仍未得到很好的体现，在批准的药物中仅能找到很少的例子。因此，理化和体外报道了氧化膦和相关的含磷官能团的性质，并将其与药物发现中更常用的结构基序进行了比较。此外，对伊马替尼的一系列含磷类似物举例说明了对真实药物支架的物理化学性质的影响。我们证明氧化膦是导致高溶解度和代谢稳定性的高极性官能团，但偶尔会降低渗透性。我们得出的结论是，氧化膦和相关的含磷官能团是有价值的极性结构元素，应将它们视为每个药物化学家工具箱的常规部分。