Resin-Bound Chiral Derivatizing Agents for Assignment of Configuration by NMR Spectroscopy

Advanced Methods for Natural Products Discovery: Bioactivity Screening, Dereplication, Metabolomics Profiling, Genomic Sequencing, Databases and Informatic Tools, and Structure Elucidation

Natural Products (NP) are essential for the discovery of novel drugs and products for numerous biotechnological applications. The NP discovery process is expensive and time-consuming, having as major hurdles dereplication (early identification of known compounds) and structure elucidation, particularly the determination of the absolute configuration of metabolites with stereogenic centers. This review comprehensively focuses on recent technological and instrumental advances, highlighting the development of methods that alleviate these obstacles, paving the way for accelerating NP discovery towards biotechnological applications. Herein, we emphasize the most innovative high-throughput tools and methods for advancing bioactivity screening, NP chemical analysis, dereplication, metabolite profiling, metabolomics, genome sequencing and/or genomics approaches, databases, bioinformatics, chemoinformatics, and three-dimensional NP structure elucidation.

Revelation of the chiral recognition of alanine and leucine in an l-phenylalanine-based metal–organic framework

An l-phenylalanine-based Zn-MOF, namely [Zn₂(l-Phe)₂(bpe)₂]_n, was designed for experimentally revealing the chiral recognition mechanism to alanine and leucine by means of ¹³C CP MAS NMR spectroscopy, XPS and control experiment.

Challenges in the configuration assignment of natural products. A case-selective perspective

An overview by a case study approach on the currently available methods for the configurational analysis of natural products.

Monosaccharides as Potential Chiral Probes for the Determination of the Absolute Configuration of Secondary Alcohols

Herein, a new method for the elucidation of the absolute configuration of chiral secondary alcohols is proposed. This method is an alternative for a widely used approach reported by Mosher and Dale and similar methods that are based on the ¹H NMR shift (δ) changes of protons that are attached to the substituents of the oxymethine carbon atom. The presented method is not based on tracking the chemical shift changes and utilizes stereochemically defined monosaccharides as chiral probes. A secondary alcohol is glycosylated, and the resulting glycoside is subjected to NMR studies. The observation of dipolar couplings between the protons of the monosaccharide moiety and the protons of the secondary alcohol moiety via the NOESY/ROESY spectra enables the determination of the absolute configuration of the oxymethine carbon atom.

Structure and Configuration of Phosphoeleganin, a Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase 1B Inhibitor from the Mediterranean Ascidian Sidnyum elegans

A new phosphorylated polyketide, phosphoeleganin (1), has been isolated from the Mediterranean ascidian Sidnyum elegans. Its structure and configuration have been determined by extensive use of 2D NMR and microscale chemical degradation and/or derivatization. Phosphoeleganin (1) inhibited the protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP1B) activity.

Modified Kagan's amide: synthesis and application as a chiral solvating agent for hydrogen-bonding based chiral discrimination in NMR

A modified Kagan's amide, N-((S)-1-(3,5-bis(trifluoromethyl)phenyl)ethyl)-3,5-dinitrobenzamide has been designed, synthesized and screened as a Chiral Solvating Agent for discrimination of optically active substrates.

Determination of the absolute configuration of natural products

Structural elucidation of natural products is always one of the most important tasks for natural product researchers in related fields. Particularly, the absolute configuration (AC), being a great challenge for natural product chemists, has attracted much attention. During the past few decades, many techniques and approaches have been developed to determine the AC of natural products, including direct (or absolute) methods, e.g. X-ray diffraction (XRD), electronic and vibrational circular dichroism (ECD and VCD), and Raman optical activity (ROA), as well as indirect (or relative) methods using a reference or a derivatizing agent with known AC, e.g. CD with empirical rules and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) utilizing anisotropic effects of chiral derivatizing agents. However, none of the currently applied techniques is capable of dominating AC determination, since they each have their respective limitations corresponding to the different structural features. This mini review summarizes most of the techniques and methods which are commonly used in AC assignment of natural products, or have potential application prospects, and briefly describes their principles, advantages and limitations.

Discrimination of α-amino acids using green tea flavonoid (-)-epigallocatechin gallate as a chiral solvating agent

We report a special, hitherto-unexplored property of (-)-epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) as a chiral solvating agent for enantiodiscrimination of α-amino acids in the polar solvent DMSO. This phenomenon has been investigated by (1)H NMR spectroscopy. The mechanism of the interaction property of EGCG with α-amino acids has been understood as arising out of hydrogen-bonded noncovalent interactions, where the -OH groups of two phenyl rings of EGCG play dominant roles. The conversion of the enantiomeric mixture into diastereomers yielded well-resolved peaks for D and L amino acids permitting the precise measurement of enantiomeric composition. Often one encounters complex situations when the spectra are severely overlapped or partially resolved hampering the testing of enantiopurity and the precise measurement of enantiomeric excess (ee). Though higher concentration of EGCG yielded better discrimination, the use of lower concentration being economical, we have exploited an appropriate 2D NMR experiment in overcoming such problems. Thus, in the present study we have successfully demonstrated the utility of the bioflavonoid (-)-EGCG, a natural product as a chiral solvating agent for the discrimination of large number of α-amino acids in a polar solvent DMSO. Another significant advantage of this new chiral sensing agent is that it is a natural product and does not require tedious multistep synthesis unlike many other chiral auxiliaries.

Aminoindanol-based chiral derivatizing agents for the determination of the absolute configuration of carboxylic acids

New chiral derivatizing agents have been prepared through a simple, short-step synthesis. The absolute configuration of α-chiral carboxylic acids can be assigned on the basis of the NMR chemical shift difference between diastereomeric esters. Because of the modular structures of the agents, the anisotropic effect could be easily manipulated to afford large chemical shift differences even in polar solvents.