Acid derivatives, acylation reagents

Ammonia and amines react with partially or fully activated carboxylic acid derivatives (acylating reagents) like acid anhydrides, acid halides, ammonium salts of monoesters, monoamides with heating, diesters under basic conditions and dinitriles after partial hydrolysis. ... 

Kobayashi, S., Moriwaki, M., and Hachiya, 1.1996. Catalytic direct C-acylation of phenol and naphthol derivatives using carboxylic acids as acylating reagents. Tetrahedron Lett. 37 4183 186. 

In synthetic target molecules esters, lactones, amides, and lactams are the most common carboxylic acid derivatives. In order to synthesize them from carboxylic acids one has generally to produce an activated acid derivative, and an enormous variety of activating reagents is known, mostly developed for peptide syntheses (M. Bodanszky, 1976). In actual syntheses of complex esters and amides, however, only a small selection of these remedies is used, and we shall mention only generally applicable methods. The classic means of activating carboxyl groups arc the acyl azide method of Curtius and the acyl chloride method of Emil Fischer. 

Acid halides are among the most reactive of carboxylic acid derivatives and can be converted into many other kinds of compounds by nucleophilic acyl substitution mechanisms. The halogen can be replaced by -OH to yield an acid, by —OCOR to yield an anhydride, by -OR to yield an ester, or by -NH2 to yield an amide. In addition, the reduction of an acid halide yields a primary alcohol, and reaction with a Grignard reagent yields a tertiary alcohol. Although the reactions we ll be discussing in this section are illustrated only for acid chlorides, similar processes take place with other acid halides. 

There are some problems associated with the use of functional derivatives of carboxylic acids. Long-chain acid anhydrides are not commercially available, and one half of the acylation reagent is not utilized. Acyl chlorides require the use of tertiary base catalysts, whose double role has been explained before. Some of the intermediate acyl ammonium compounds formed are, however, insoluble in the solvent system. Examples include RCO - N+EtsCL in LiCl/DMAc, where RCO refers to the propionyl, hexanoyl, and stearoyl moiety, respectively. Hexanoyl- and stearoyl-pyridinium chlorides are also insoluble in the same solvent system [185]. 

For lists of reagents converting acid derivatives to acyl halides, see Ref. 568, pp. 977,980, 985. 

Carboxylic acids can also be activated by the formation of mixed anhydrides with various phosphoric acid derivatives. Diphenyl phosphoryl azide, for example, is an effective reagent for conversion of amines to amides.140 The proposed mechanism involves formation of the acyl azide as a reactive intermediate. 

Reactions of Organozinc Reagents with Acyl Halides, Anhydrides, and Other Carboxylic Acid Derivatives... 

The /3-lactone dimer of dimethylketene reacts with alcohols, phenols, mercaptans, and amines to form derivatives of 2,2,4-trimethylvaleric acid.3 In this respect it is a more powerful acylating reagent than the normal dimer, tetramethyl-l,3-cyclo-butanedione. The preparation of 2,2,4-trimethyl-3-oxovaler-anilide, for example, is accomplished easily with the lactone dimer, but is extremely difficult with the normal dimer.8... 

FIGURE 6.30 Approaches for the synthesis of monosubstituted trifunctional amino acids. (A) Monoesterification of dicarboxylic acids. (B) Aa-Alkoxycarbonylation of lysine through the e-benzylidene derivative [Bezas Zervas, 1963]. (C) SelectiveN -detritylation of ditrityl derivatives.138 (D) A- AI ko x y met hy 1 at 10 n of histidine by displacement of AP-substituents.137 Cbz-His(CH2OR)-OMe are obtained from Cbz-His(xAc)-OMe. = Acylating reagent. 

Pre-column derivatization with either 134 or 135 followed by CZE and LIF detection was proposed for amino acids. The amino group of the analyte displaces the succinyloxy moiety of the reagent yielding a carboxamide325. See also Section IV.D.3.C for other acylating reagents derived from A-hydroxysuccinimide (95 and 96). 

A number of nonnatural amino acids were resolved into individual enantiomers on 0-9-(2,6-diisopropylphenylcarbamoyl)quinine-based CSPby Peter and coworkers [48,90,113,114] after derivatization with Sanger s reagent, chloroformates (DNZ-Cl, FMOC-Cl, Z-Cl), Boc-anhydride, or acyl chlorides (DNB-Cl, Ac-Cl, Bz-Cl). For example, the four stereoisomers of P-methylphenylalanine, P-methyltyrosine, P-methyltryptophan, and P-methyl-l,2,3,4-tetrahydroisoquinoline-3-carboxylic acid could be conveniently resolved as various A-derivatives [113]. The applicability spectrum of cinchonan carbamate CSPs comprises also P-amino carboxylic acid derivatives, which were, for example, investigated by Peter et al. [114]. A common trend in terms of elution order of DNP-derivatized P-amino acids was obeyed in the latter study On the utilized quinine carbamate-based CSP, the elution order was S before R for 2-aminobutyric acid, while it was R before S for the 3-amino acids having branched R substituents such as wo-butyl, iec-butyl, tert-butyl, cyclohexyl, or phenyl residues. 

One of the more difficult partial reductions to accomplish is the conversion of a carboxylic acid derivative to an aldehyde without over-reduction to the alcohol. Aldehydes are inherently more reactive than acids or esters so the challenge is to stop the reduction at the aldehyde stage. Several approaches have been used to achieve this objective. One is to replace some of the hydrogens in a group III hydride with more bulky groups, thus modifying reactivity by steric factors. Lithium tr i - / - b u to x y a I u m i n u m hydride is an example of this approach.42 Sodium tri-t-butoxyaluminum hydride can also be used to reduce acyl chlorides to aldehydes without over-reduction to the alcohol.43 The excellent solubility of sodium bis(2-methoxyethoxy)aluminum hydride makes it a useful reagent for selective... 

The difficulties encountered in aminoacylation of such lipo-amino acid derivatives are similar to those of the N-alkylated amino acids (see Vol. E 22c, Sections 10.1.1 and 10.1.2), but may be even worse due to steric hindrance of the large alkyl chains. Similarly, acylation with such amino acids leads to poor yields by the use of even stronger acylating reagents, e.g. HBTU, BOP, and PyBroP, with a marked improvement by the use of the mixed anhydride method although long reaction times were required. 128 ... 

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