The synthesis of a-amino-b-keto-esters (b-oxo dipeptides) was studied. Corresponding a-amino-b-ketoesters were prepared from BOC-(L)-Valine and BOC-(L)-isoleucine by coupling with (D,L)-threonine hydrochloride and oxidation with Dess-Martin periodinane (DMP) with a total yield of 48% and 38%, respectively.Keywords a-amino-b-keto-esters, dipeptide, oxidation, Dess-Martin Periodinane (DMP)In recent years, a wide variety of natural cyclopeptides characterized by an alternating sequence of oxazole and thiazole moieties have been isolated from marine sources, mainly sponges and ascidians. These compounds have usually been identified as secondary metabolites of marine organisms possessing good cytotoxicity and antibacterial activity. This has prompted many chemists to study the structure and synthesis of these compounds [1,2]. The imidazole unit plays a major role in the biological functions of many peptides and proteins. However, no cyclopeptides containing imidazole units have yet been found in nature. Thus, some recent studies focused on the synthesis of the imidazole analogs of cyclopeptides [3,4]. As the key segments of the cyclopeptides mentioned above, the syntheses of these 5-membered heterocyclic dipeptide mimetics 1 were studied by Gorden T D (Scheme 1) [5]. They found that a-amino-b-keto-esters (b-oxo-dipeptides) of general structure 2 are useful intermediates in the synthesis of oxazole 1a, thiazole 1b and imidazole 1c dipeptide mimetics through different synthetic routes.In this paper, a-amino-b-keto-esters are the synthetic target molecules. Amino ketones 3 and 4 were prepared from BOC-(L)-Valine 5 and BOC-(L)-isoleucine 6, which were coupled with (L)-threonine methyl ester hydrochloride 7 and the resulting secondary alcohols 8 and 9were then oxidized with the Dess-Martin periodinane (DMP) [6] giving 48% yield and 38% yield (Scheme 2).
Experiments
Apparatus and reagentsSpecific rotations were measured on a WZZ-3 polarimeter. Infrared spectra were obtained using a BIO-BAD EXALIBUR FTS3000 series FT-IR instrument. 1 H and 13 C-NMR spectra were recorded employing a Bruker AV360 instrument and chemical shifts (d) are in ppm relative to TMS used as internal standard. Mass spectra were recorded on a Finnigan MAT 95 spectrometer using fast atom bombardment (HR-FABMS). All chemicals and solvents were of analytical grade. All reactions were monitored by TLC using glass sheets coated with silica gel (type GF254, Qingdao Haiyang). Flash column chromatography was carried out using 200-300 mesh silica gel. The oxidant, DMP, was prepared according to reference [6].