Cyclative Cleavage Strategies for the Solid-Phase Synthesis of Heterocycles and Natural Products

Traceless Solid-Phase Organic Synthesis

Traceless solid-phase synthesis represents an ultimate sophisticated synthetic strategy on insoluble supports. Compounds synthesized on solid supports can be released without a trace of the linker that was used to tether the intermediates during the synthesis. Thus, the target products are composed only of the components (atoms, functional groups) inherent to the target core structure. A wide variety of synthetic strategies have been developed to prepare products in a traceless manner, and this review is dedicated to all aspects of traceless solid-phase organic synthesis. Importantly, the synthesis does not need to be carried out on a linker designed for traceless synthesis; most of the synthetic approaches described herein were developed using standard, commercially available linkers (originally devised for solid-phase peptide synthesis). The type of structure prepared in a traceless fashion is not restricted. The individual synthetic approaches are divided into eight sections, each devoted to a different methodology for traceless synthesis. Each section consists of a brief outline of the synthetic strategy followed by a description of individual reported syntheses.

Natural products as a hunting ground for combinatorial chemistry

Natural products have a long history of success as biologically active leads for therapeutic agents. The ability to prepare analogues and to discover structure-activity relationships is necessary to truly harness the potential of natural products. Recently, combinatorial chemistry has risen to this challenge, and even fairly complex natural products can be targeted for parallel synthesis. Academic and industrial efforts have employed natural products from the peptide, alkaloid, polyketide, and terpenoid and steroid classes in combinatorial chemistry approaches for the production of medicinally important compounds.

Solid-phase total synthesis of kahalalide A and related analogues

The marine natural product kahalalide A, a cyclic depsipeptide, was prepared by total synthesis on solid-phase. A backbone cyclization strategy was followed, using the Kenner sulfonamide safety-catch linker. By NMR comparison of synthetic and naturally isolated material, the stereochemistry of the methylbutyrate side chain was established as (S). Several analogues were synthesized and tested for antimycobacterial activity. The results indicate that the alcohol functional group in the serine and threonine residues is important, while the methylbutyrate side chain can be replaced by an achiral hexanoate with an increase in activity.