Organoboron catalysis for direct amide/peptide bond formation

Amides and peptides are ubiquitous functional groups found in several natural and artificial materials, and they are essential for the advancement of life and material sciences. In particular, their relevance in clinical medicine and drug discovery has increased in recent years. Dehydrative condensation of readily available carboxylic acids with amines is the most "direct" method for amide synthesis; however, this methodology generally requires a stoichiometric amount of condensation agent (coupling reagent). Catalytic direct dehydrative amidation has become an "ideal" methodology for synthesizing amides from the perspective of green chemistry, with water as the only byproduct in principle, high atom efficiency, environmentally friendly, energy saving, and safety. Conversely, organoboron compounds, such as boronic acids, which are widely used in various industries as coupling reagents for Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reactions or pharmaceutical structures, are environmentally friendly molecules that have low toxicity and are easy to handle. Based on the chemical properties of organoboron compounds, they have potential Lewis acidity and the ability to form reversible covalent bonds with dehydration, making them attractive as catalysts. This review explores studies on the development of direct dehydrative amide/peptide bond formation reactions from carboxylic acids using organoboron catalysis, classifying them based on chemical bonding and catalysis over approximately 25 years, from the early developmental days to 2023.

Emergent Organoboron Acid Catalysts

Organoboron acids are stable, organic-soluble Lewis acids with potential application as catalysts for a wide variety of chemical reactions. In this review, we summarize the utility of boronic and borinic acids, as well as boric acid, as catalysts for organic transformations. Typically, the catalytic processes exploit the Lewis acidity of trivalent boron, enabling the reversible formation of a covalent bond with oxygen. Our focus is on recent developments in the catalysis of dehydration, carbonyl condensation, acylation, alkylation, and cycloaddition reactions. We conclude that organoboron acids have a highly favorable prospectus as the source of new catalysts.

Heterocyclic Boron Acid Catalyzed Dehydrative Amidation of Aliphatic/Aromatic Carboxylic Acids with Amines

A commercially available and versatile dehydrative amidation catalyst, featuring a thianthrene boron acid structure, has been developed. The catalyst shows high catalytic activity to both aliphatic and less reactive aromatic carboxylic acid substrates, including several bioactive or clinical molecules with a carboxylic acid group.

Less Is More: N(BOH)2 Configuration Exhibits Higher Reactivity than the B3NO2 Heterocycle in Catalytic Dehydrative Amide Formation

Diboron substructures have emerged as a promising scaffold for the catalytic dehydrative amidation of carboxylic acids and amines. This Letter describes the design, synthesis, and evaluation of the first isolable N(BOH)₂ compound as an amidation catalyst. The new catalyst outperforms the previously reported B₃NO₂ heterocycle catalyst, with respect to turnover frequency, albeit the former gradually decomposes upon exposure to amines. This work opens up an avenue for designing a better catalyst for direct amidation.

Optimized Glycopeptide Enrichment Method-It Is All about the Sauce

Protein glycosylation is a family of posttranslational modifications that play a crucial role in many biological pathways and diseases. The enrichment and analysis of such a diverse family of modifications are very challenging because of the number of possible glycan–peptide combinations. Among the methods used for the enrichment of glycopeptides, boronic acid never lived up to its promise. While most studies focused on improving the affinity of the boronic acids to the sugars, we discovered that the buffer choice is just as important for successful enrichment if not more so. We show that an amine-less buffer allows for the best glycoproteomic coverage, in human plasma and brain specimens, improving total quantified glycopeptides by over 10-fold, and reaching 1598 N-linked glycopeptides in the brain and 737 in nondepleted plasma. We speculate that amines compete with the glycans for boronic acid binding, and therefore the elimination of them improved the method significantly.

Secondary-sphere modification in proline catalysis: Old friend, new connection

In this work, we exploit our strategy of in situ secondary-sphere modification of organocatalysts to improve the reactivity and selectivity of amino catalysts. Herein, the carboxylic acid moiety of proline...

Diboronic Acid Anhydrides as Effective Catalysts for the Hydroxy-Directed Dehydrative Amidation of Carboxylic Acids

The direct catalytic dehydrative amidation of β-hydroxycarboxylic acids with amines is described. A biphenyl-based diboronic acid anhydride with a B-O-B skeleton is shown to be an exceptionally effective catalyst for the reaction, providing β-hydroxycarboxylic amides in high to excellent yields with a low catalyst loading (minimum of 0.01 mol %, TON up to 7,500). This hydroxy-directed amidation shows excellent chemoselectivity and is applicable to gram-scale drug synthesis.

Microsolvated Model for the Kinetics and Thermodynamics of Glycosidic Bond Dissociative Cleavage of Nucleoside D4G

Using the microsolvated model that involves explicit water molecules and implicit solvent in the optimization, two proposed dissociative hydrolysis mechanisms of 2',3'-didehydro-2',3'-dideoxyguanosine (d4G) have been first investigated by means of M06-2X(CPCM, water)/6-31++G(d,p) method. The glycosidic bond dissociation for the generation of the oxacarbenium ion intermediate is the rate-determining step (RDS). The subsequent nucleophilic water attack from different side of the oxacarbenium ion intermediate gives either the α-product [(2S,5S)-5-(hydroxymethyl)-2,5-dihydrofuran-2-ol] or β-product [(2R,5S)-5-(hydroxymethyl)-2,5-dihydrofuran-2-ol] and is thus referred to as α-path (inversion) and β-path (retention). Two to five explicit water molecules (n = 2-5) are considered in the microsolvated model, and n = 3 or 4 is the smallest model capable of minimizing the activation energy for α-path and β-path, respectively. Our theoretical results suggest that α-path (n = 3) is more kinetically favorable with lower free energy barrier (RDS) of 27.7 kcal mol^-1, in contrast to that of 30.7 kcal mol^-1 for the β-path (n = 4). The kinetic preference of the α-path is rationalized by NBO analysis. Whereas thte β-path is more thermodynamically favorable over the α-path, where the formation of β-product and α-product are exergonic and endergonic, respectively, providing theoretical support for the experimental observation that the β-cleavage product was the major one after sufficient reaction time. Comparisons of d4G with analogous cyclo-d4G and dG from kinetic free energy barriers and thermodynamic heterolytic dissociation energies were also carried out. Our kinetic and thermodynamic results manifest that the order of glycosidic bond stability should be d4G < cyclo-d4G < dG, which agrees well with the reported experimental stability order of d4G compounds and analogues and gives further understanding on the influence of 6-cyclopropylamino and unsaturated ribose to the glycosidic bond instability of d4G.

Mechanistic insights into boron-catalysed direct amidation reactions

The generally accepted monoacyloxyboron mechanism of boron-catalysed direct amidation is brought into question in this study, and new alternatives are proposed.

The generally accepted monoacyloxyboron mechanism of boron-catalysed direct amidation is brought into question in this study, and new alternatives are proposed. We have carried out a detailed investigation of boron-catalysed amidation reactions, through study of the interaction between amines/carboxylic acids and borinic acids, boronic acids and boric acid, and have isolated and characterised by NMR/X-ray crystallography many of the likely intermediates present in catalytic amidation reactions. Rapid reaction between amines and boron compounds was observed in all cases, and it is proposed that such boron–nitrogen interactions are highly likely to take place in catalytic amidation reactions. These studies also clearly show that borinic acids are not competent catalysts for amidation, as they either form unreactive amino-carboxylate complexes, or undergo protodeboronation to give boronic acids. It therefore seems that at least three free coordination sites on the boron atom are necessary for amidation catalysis to occur. However, these observations are not consistent with the currently accepted ‘mechanism’ for boron-mediated amidation reactions involving nucleophilic attack of an amine onto a monomeric acyloxyboron intermediate, and as a result of our observations and theoretical modelling, alternative proposed mechanisms are presented for boron-mediated amidation reactions. These are likely to proceed via the formation of a dimeric B–X–B motif (X = O, NR), which is uniquely able to provide activation of the carboxylic acid, whilst orchestrating the delivery of the amine nucleophile to the carbonyl group. Quantum mechanical calculations of catalytic cycles at the B3LYP+D3/Def2-TZVPP level (solvent = CH₂Cl₂) support the proposal of several closely related potential pathways for amidation, all of which are likely to be lower in energy than the currently accepted mechanism.

The ortho-substituent on 2,4-bis(trifluoromethyl)phenylboronic acid catalyzed dehydrative condensation between carboxylic acids and amines

The ortho-substituent of boronic acid plays a key role in preventing the coordination of amines to the boron atom.

Computational study of the mechanism of amide bond formation via CS2-releasing 1,3-acyl transfer

A systematic computational study on CS₂-releasing 1,3-acyl transfer was performed for the first time and provided deeper mechanistic insights.

Synthesis of N-acetoxy-N-arylamides via diacetoxyiodobenzene promoted double acylation reaction of hydroxylamines with aldehydes

A facile and efficient synthesis of N-acetoxy-N-arylamides through double acylations of hydroxylamines with aldehydes and diacetoxyiodobenzene is reported. The yields of the products are good to excellent.

Ruthenium-catalyzed oxidative decyanative cross-coupling of acetonitriles with amines in air: a general access to primary to tertiary amides under mild conditions

C–CN activation catalyzed by Ru/C in open air was achieved, affording an efficient access to primary, secondary and tertiary amides under mild conditions.

Nonclassical Routes for Amide Bond Formation

The present review offers an overview of nonclassical (e.g., with no pre- or in situ activation of a carboxylic acid partner) approaches for the construction of amide bonds. The review aims to comprehensively discuss relevant work, which was mainly done in the field in the last 20 years. Organization of the data follows a subdivision according to substrate classes: catalytic direct formation of amides from carboxylic and amines ( section 2 ); the use of carboxylic acid surrogates ( section 3 ); and the use of amine surrogates ( section 4 ). The ligation strategies (NCL, Staudinger, KAHA, KATs, etc.) that could involve both carboxylic acid and amine surrogates are treated separately in section 5 .

Boronic acid-DMAPO cooperative catalysis for dehydrative condensation between carboxylic acids and amines

Arylboronic acid and DMAPO cooperatively catalyse the dehydrative condensation reaction between carboxylic acids and amines to give the corresponding amides under azeotropic reflux conditions. This cooperative use is much more effective than their individual use as catalysts.

Arylboronic acid and 4-(N,N-dimethylamino)pyridine N-oxide (DMAPO) cooperatively catalyse the dehydrative condensation reaction between carboxylic acids and amines to give the corresponding amides under azeotropic reflux conditions. This cooperative use is much more effective than their individual use as catalysts, and chemoselectively promotes the amide condensation of (poly)conjugated carboxylic acids. The present method is practical and scalable, and has been applied to the synthesis of sitagliptin and a drug candidate.

Fast and catalyst-free hydrazone ligation via ortho-halo-substituted benzaldehydes for protein C-terminal labeling at neutral pH

Rapid and catalyst-free hydrazone ligation reaction between ortho-halobenzaldehyde derivatives and peptide/protein hydrazides was observed at neutral pH and room temperature.

Catalytic amide formation from non-activated carboxylic acids and amines

The amide functionality is found in a wide variety of biological and synthetic structures such as proteins, polymers, pesticides and pharmaceuticals. Due to the fact that synthetic amides are still mainly produced by the aid of coupling reagents with poor atom-economy, the direct catalytic formation of amides from carboxylic acids and amines has become a field of emerging importance. A general, efficient and selective catalytic method for this transformation would meet well with the increasing demands for green chemistry procedures. This review covers catalytic and synthetically relevant methods for direct condensation of carboxylic acids and amines. A comprehensive overview of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalytic methods is presented, covering biocatalysts, Lewis acid catalysts based on boron and metals as well an assortment of other types of catalysts.