Amino acid hydrazides are important intermediates for peptide synthesis by the azide coupling method. An N-protected amino acid hydrazide is converted to a corresponding azide, followed by a coupling reaction with an amino group of an amino acid to form a peptide bond. Hydrazides are also important in a Curtius rearrangement reaction as starting material for the azide. The conversion of a hydrazide to an azide is performed with a nitrite (sodium nitrite, amyl nitrite, tertbutyl nitrite, etc.) in the presence of an acid.1) Usually, hydrochloric acid is used as the acid, but organic acids are often used. Hydrazides are also important starting materials for the preparation of N-protected amino acid derivatives. tert-Butyloxycarbonyl (Boc) and p-methoxybenzyloxycarbonyl [Z(OMe)] amino acids were prepared by the reaction of an amino acid with the corresponding azide (Boc-N 3 or Z(OMe)-N 3 ). These azides were prepared from the corresponding hydrazides (Boc-NHNH 2 or Z(OMe)-NHNH 2 ) with sodium nitrite in aqueous acetic acid. Boc-N 32) was prepared in 43% acetic acid and Z(OMe)-N 33) was prepared in 45% acetic acid from each corresponding hydrazide.Since acetic acid and formic acid have superior solubility, they are often used as both an acid and a solvent when an azide is prepared from a hydrazide with a nitrite. In these cases, especially when formic acid was used, we occasionally observed that the yield of the azide coupling reaction was poor. We speculated that the poor yield was caused by acylation on the hydrazide with the corresponding acid. The acylated hydrazide could not be converted to the azide and, as a result, the coupling yield of the azide reaction was poor. We examined acylation on a hydrazide by treatment with acetic acid and formic acid. Benzyloxycarbonylalanine hydrazide (Z-Ala-NHNH 2 ) was treated with acetic acid and the reaction mixture was examined by HPLC.As shown in Fig. 1, a new peak was observed after treatment with acetic acid at 20°C. Analysis of mass and NMR spectra revealed that the new peak corresponded to the acetyl derivative. After 1 and 12 h at 20°C, 11 and 49% of the hydrazide was acetylated, respectively. We examined acetylation with various concentrations of acetic acid and the results are shown in Fig. 2.The rate of acetylation was dependent upon the concentration of acetic acid. Even in aqueous 10% acetic acid, 3% of the hydrazide was acetylated after 1 h.Next, formylation of the hydrazide with formic acid was examined. As shown in Fig. 3, a new peak was observed after treatment with formic acid. The new peak was isolated and identified as the formyl derivative by time of flight mass spectra (TOF-MS) and NMR spectral analysis. After 20 min, 60% of the hydrazide was formylated. Formylation was examined at various concentrations of formic acid and the re- * To whom correspondence should be addressed. In peptide synthesis, hydrazides are important intermediates for the azide coupling method. A hydrazide is converted to the corresponding azide in the presence of an acid and a nitr...