Azole-based cyclic peptides found in ascidians ("sea squirts") of the genus Lissoclinum have a high propensity to chelate metal ions. This Highlight summarises the current evidence for marine cyclic peptide-metal congruence, and the structural and stereochemical features in cyclic peptides which seem necessary to facilitate metal complexation. The biological relevance of the metal ions in these associations, including their possible role in the assembly of cyclic peptides in the marine milieu, is also briefly considered. Finally, the synthesis of natural, and some novel non-natural, azole-based cyclic peptides from the cyclooligomerisation and assembly of azole-based amino acids, including in the presence of metal ions, is presented.

A convergent, complementary, synthetic approach to the contiguously linked tris-oxazole units 10, 11 and 12 in telomestatin (1) and YM-216391 (2) is described. The route involves coupling reactions between oxazole 4-carboxylic acids, viz 16a, 16c, 16d and oxazole 2-substituted methylamines, viz 16b, 16e, 17, leading to the amides 18 and 21, followed by cyclodehydrations to the corresponding bis-oxazole oxazolines, e.g. 19, and oxidations of the latter using well-established protocols. The tris-oxazoles 11 and 12 were next converted stepwise into the hexa-oxazole bis-macrolactams 33. Although the bis-macrolactams 33 (cf. 28) could be converted into the corresponding oxazoline-hexa-oxazoles 34 and to the enamides 35, neither of these intermediates could be elaborated to the hepta-oxazole 30en route to telomestatin 1. Likewise, neither the hexa-oxazole 47 or application of an intramolecular Hantzsch oxazole ring-forming reaction from 44b allowed access to the advanced polyoxazole-macrolactam intermediates 48 and 30a, respectively, towards telomestatin. Combination of the tris-oxazole based methylamine 70 with the dipeptide carboxylic acid 71 derived from D-valine and L-isoleucine, leads to the corresponding amide which, in two straightforward steps, is converted into the -amino acid 78. Macrolactamisation of 78, using HATU, next produces the cyclopeptide 79 which is then elaborated to the thiazole and oxazole based cyclopeptide YM-216391 (2). The synthetic cyclopeptide 2 is shown to be the enantiomer of the natural product isolated from Streptomyces nobilis.

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Thiazole containing cyclic peptides have been synthesised in high yields by cyclooligomerisation reactions of amino acid substituted thiazole monomers.