Deprotection of t-Butyl Esters of Amino Acid Derivatives by Nitric Acid in Dichloromethane

Developing deprotectase biocatalysts for synthesis

Organic synthesis often requires multiple steps where a functional group (FG) is concealed from reaction by a protecting group (PG). Common PGs include N-carbobenzyloxy (Cbz or Z) of amines and tert-butyloxycarbonyl (OtBu) of acids. An essential step is the removal of the PG, but this often requires excess reagents, extensive time and can have low % yield. An overarching goal of biocatalysis is to use "green" or "enzymatic" methods to catalyse chemical transformations. One under-utilised approach is the use of "deprotectase" biocatalysts to selectively remove PGs from various organic substrates. The advantage of this methodology is the exquisite selectivity of the biocatalyst to only act on its target, leaving other FGs and PGs untouched. A number of deprotectase biocatalysts have been reported but they are not commonly used in mainstream synthetic routes. This study describes the construction of a cascade to deprotect doubly-protected amino acids. The well known Bacillus BS2 esterase was used to remove the OtBu PG from various amino acid substrates. The more obscure Sphingomonas Cbz-ase (amidohydrolase) was screened with a range of N-Cbz-modified amino acid substrates. We then combined both the BS2 and Cbz-ase together for a 1 pot, 2 step deprotection of the model substrate CBz-L-Phe OtBu to produce the free L-Phe. We also provide some insight into the residues involved in substrate recognition and catalysis using docked ligands in the crystal structure of BS2. Similarly, a structural model of the Cbz-ase identifies a potential di-metal binding site and reveals conserved active site residues. This new biocatalytic cascade should be further explored for its application in chemical synthesis.

Optimized syntheses of Fmoc azido amino acids for the preparation of azidopeptides

The rise of CuI‐catalyzed click chemistry has initiated an increased demand for azido and alkyne derivatives of amino acid as precursors for the synthesis of clicked peptides. However, the use of azido and alkyne amino acids in peptide chemistry is complicated by their high cost. For this reason, we investigated the possibility of the in‐house preparation of a set of five Fmoc azido amino acids: β‐azido l‐alanine and d‐alanine, γ‐azido l‐homoalanine, δ‐azido l‐ornithine and ω‐azido l‐lysine. We investigated several reaction pathways described in the literature, suggested several improvements and proposed several alternative routes for the synthesis of these compounds in high purity. Here, we demonstrate that multigram quantities of these Fmoc azido amino acids can be prepared within a week or two and at user‐friendly costs. We also incorporated these azido amino acids into several model tripeptides, and we observed the formation of a new elimination product of the azido moiety upon conditions of prolonged couplings with 2‐(1H‐benzotriazol‐1‐yl)‐1,1,3,3‐tetramethyluronium hexafluorophosphate/DIPEA. We hope that our detailed synthetic protocols will inspire some peptide chemists to prepare these Fmoc azido acids in their laboratories and will assist them in avoiding the too extensive costs of azidopeptide syntheses.

Experimental procedures and/or analytical data for compounds 3–5, 20, 25, 26, 30 and 43–47 are provided in the supporting information. © 2017 The Authors Journal of Peptide Science published by European Peptide Society and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

One-step continuous flow synthesis of highly substituted pyrrole-3-carboxylic acid derivatives via in situ hydrolysis of tert-butyl esters

The first one-step, continuous flow synthesis of pyrrole-3-carboxylic acids directly from tert-butyl acetoacetates, amines, and 2-bromoketones is reported. The HBr generated as a byproduct in the Hantzsch reaction was utilized in the flow method to hydrolyze the t-butyl esters in situ to provide the corresponding acids in a single microreactor. The protocol was used in the multistep synthesis of pyrrole-3-carboxamides, including two CB1 inverse agonists, directly from commercially available starting materials in a single continuous process.

An efficient synthesis of N-methyl amino acids by way of intermediate 5-oxazolidinones

N-Methyl amino acids occur in many natural products. Experimental strategies are presented for a unified approach to the synthesis of N-methyl derivatives through 5-oxazolidinones of the 20 common l-amino acids. The amino acids with reactive side chains that required protecting groups or devoted syntheses for side chain construction for N-methylation to proceed included serine, threonine, tyrosine, cysteine, methionine, tryptophan, asparagine, histidine, and arginine. The studies have provided improved methods for the preparation of N-methyl serine, threonine, and tyrosine. All 20 of the common l-amino acids are now available in suitable forms for solid or solution-phase peptide synthesis.