Conformational study and enantioselective, regiospecific syntheses of novel aminoxy trans-proline analogues derived from an acylnitroso Diels-Alder cycloaddition.

The cis/trans isomerization of the proline amide bond has many implications in biological processes. The conformations of representative acylnitroso-derived proline analogues derived from cyclopentadiene were shown to exist exclusively as the E or trans conformation in CD2Cl2. The energetically favored conformations were determined using COSMO self-consistent reaction field calculations at the B3LYP/6-31G level of theory in addition to low temperature 1H NMR studies. The syntheses of the acylnitroso-derived peptides utilized two methods to selectively functionalize either of two chemically similar esters in the acylnitroso-derived amino acids. A novel transpeptidation of the amino acid that controlled the absolute stereochemistry in the acylnitroso Diels-Alder cycloaddition took advantage of an activated aminoxy amide linkage to control regiochemistry. Alternatively, an enantioselective and regiospecific enzymatic resolution of a racemic dimethyl ester provided a novel aminoxy acid.

Synthesis of enantiomerically and diastereomerically pure 2(S)-amino-6(R)-hydroxy-1,7-heptanedioic acid dimethyl ester hydrochloride from cycloheptadiene.

The complete carbon framework of enantiomerically and diastereomerically pure 2(S)-amino-6(R)-hydroxy-1,7-heptanedioic acid dimethyl ester hydrochloride was derived from cycloheptadiene in six steps utilizing an amino acid-derived acylnitroso Diels-Alder reaction as the key step. This versatile amino diester has been previously used to synthesize amino-differentiated diaminopimelic acid (DAP) and biologically active analogues. In addition, after formation of a novel aminoxy diketopiperazine, the newly formed carboxyl groups were differentiated by a novel transpeptidation of the amino acid that directed the stereochemistry of the initial cycloaddition.