Abstract
Several years ago a number of antihypertensive N-alkyl-N′-cyano-N″-pyridylguanidines was prepared by addition of cyanamide to N-alkyl-N′-pyridylcarbodiimides which were obtained from the respective thioureas and phosgene or triphenylphosphine/carbon tetrachloride1. Recently we have described some attractive synthetic methods for N-alkyl-N′-4-pyridylthioureas2, based on 4-pyridyldithiocarbamic acid (1) (Scheme 1). We now report on the synthesis of N-alkyl-N′-cyano-N″-4-pyridylguanidines (4) from (1) by two different routes which ultimately may pass through a common intermediate (3) (Scheme 1).