Rapid and Mild Synthesis of Amino Acid N -Carboxy Anhydrides: Basic-to-Acidic Flash Switching in a Microflow Reactor

Superfast and Water-Insensitive Polymerization on α-Amino Acid N-Carboxyanhydrides to Prepare Polypeptides Using Tetraalkylammonium Carboxylate as the Initiator

We design the tetraalkylammonium carboxylate-initiated superfast polymerization on α-amino acid N-carboxyanhydrides (NCA) for efficient synthesis of polypeptides. Carboxylates, as a new class of initiator for NCA polymerization, can initiate the superfast NCA polymerization without the need of extra catalysts and the polymerization can be operated in open vessels at ambient condition without the use of glove box. Tetraalkylammonium carboxylate-initiated polymerization on NCA easily affords block copolymers with at least 15 blocks. Moreover, this method avoids tedious purification steps and enables direct polymerization on crude NCAs in aqueous environments to prepare polypeptides and one-pot synthesis of polypeptide nanoparticles. These advantages and the mild polymerization condition of tetraalkylammonium carboxylate-initiated NCA polymerization imply its great potential in functional exploration and application of polypeptides.

Rapid and Mild Lactamization Using Highly Electrophilic Triphosgene in a Microflow Reactor

Lactams are cyclic amides that are indispensable as drugs and as drug candidates. Conventional lactamization includes acid-mediated and coupling-agent-mediated approaches that suffer from narrow substrate scope, much waste, and/or high cost. Inexpensive, less-wasteful approaches mediated by highly electrophilic reagents are attractive, but there is an imminent risk of side reactions. Herein, a methods using highly electrophilic triphosgene in a microflow reactor that accomplishes rapid (0.5-10 s), mild, inexpensive, and less-wasteful lactamization are described. Methods A and B, which use N-methylmorpholine and N-methylimidazole, respectively, were developed. Various lactams and a cyclic peptide containing acid- and/or heat-labile functional groups were synthesized in good to high yields without the need for tedious purification. Undesired reactions were successfully suppressed, and the risk of handling triphosgene was minimized by the use of microflow technology.

Divergent Synthesis of γ-Amino Acid and γ-Lactam Derivatives from meso-Glutaric Anhydrides

The first divergent synthesis of both γ-amino acid and γ-lactam derivatives from meso-glutaric anhydrides is described. The organocatalytic desymmetrisation with TMSN₃ relies on controlled generation of a nucleophilic ammonium azide species mediated by a polystyrene-bound base to promote efficient silylazidation. After Curtius rearrangement of the acyl azide intermediate to access the corresponding isocyanate, hydrolysis/alcoholysis provided uniformly high yields of γ-amino acids and their N-protected counterparts. The same intermediates were shown to undergo an unprecedented decarboxylation-cyclisation cascade in situ to provide synthetically useful yields of γ-lactam derivatives without using any further activating agents. Mechanistic insights invoke the intermediacy of an unconventional γ-N-carboxyanhydride (γ-NCA) in the latter process. Among the examples prepared using this transformation are 8 APIs/molecules of considerable medicinal interest.

Single-Step, Rapid, and Mild Synthesis of β-Amino Acid N-Carboxy Anhydrides Using Micro-Flow Technology

β-Amino acid N-carboxy anhydrides (β-NCAs) are rarely used in the synthesis of β-peptides, which is due mainly to the poor availability of these potentially useful substrates. Herein, we describe the heretofore challenging synthesis of β-NCAs via a single-step, rapid, and mild formation using pH flash switching and flash dilution, which are aspects of micro-flow technology. We synthesized 15 β-NCAs in good to excellent yields that included acid-labile β-NCAs that cannot be readily synthesized using the conventional Leuchs approach. Scaled-up synthesis using this process can be readily achieved via continuous operation.

Ring opening polymerization of α-amino acids: advances in synthesis, architecture and applications of polypeptides and their hybrids

This review provides a comprehensive overview of the latest advances in the synthesis, architectural design and biomedical applications of polypeptides and their hybrids.

Continuous Flow Synthesis of ACE Inhibitors From N-Substituted l-Alanine Derivatives

A strategy for the continuous flow synthesis of angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors is described. An optimization effort guided by in situ IR analysis resulted in a general amide coupling approach facilitated by N-carboxyanhydride (NCA) activation that was further characterized by reaction kinetics analysis in batch. The three-step continuous process was demonstrated by synthesizing 8 different ACE inhibitors in up to 88 % yield with throughputs in the range of ≈0.5 g h^-1 , all while avoiding both isolation of reactive intermediates and process intensive reaction conditions. The process was further developed by preparing enalapril, a World Health Organization (WHO) essential medicine, in an industrially relevant flow platform that scaled throughput to ≈1 g h^-1 .