Acyl urea group

Then N-Boc-O-benzylserine is coupled to the free amino group with DCC. This concludes one cycle (N° -deprotection, neutralization, coupling) in solid-phase synthesis. All three steps can be driven to very high total yields (< 99.5%) since excesses of Boc-amino acids and DCC (about fourfold) in CHjClj can be used and since side-reactions which lead to soluble products do not lower the yield of condensation product. One side-reaction in DCC-promoted condensations leads to N-acylated ureas. These products will remain in solution and not reaa with the polymer-bound amine. At the end of the reaction time, the polymer is filtered off and washed. The times consumed for 99% completion of condensation vary from 5 min for small amino acids to several hours for a bulky amino acid, e.g. Boc-Ile, with other bulky amino acids on a resin. A new cycle can begin without any workup problems (R.B. Merrifield, 1969 B.W. Erickson, 1976 M. Bodanszky, 1976). 

Poor nucleophiles react with acyl isoureas B so slowly that the latter start to decompose. In some sense they acylate themselves. The N atom designated with the positional number 3 intramolecularly substitutes the O-bound leaving group that is attached to the carboxyl carbon Cl. A four-membered cyclic tetrahedral intermediate is formed. When the Cl -Ol bond in this intermediate opens up, the N-acyl urea E is produced. Because compound E is an amide derivative it is no longer an acylating agent (cf. Section 6.2). 

When the less hindered 2,4-tolylene diisocyanate is reacted with a phospholene oxide catalyst linear oligomeric carbodiimides are obtained which have been reacted with a variety of nucleophiles to give poly(ureas), poly(acyl ureas), poly(formamidines) and poly-(guanidines) by addition across the N=C=N group. Also, reaction of the oligomeric carbodiimides with acrylic or methacrylic acid affords linear polymers, which can be further polymerized by free-radical type processes. Also, reaction of the carbodiimide oligomers obtained from 2,4-TDI with adipic acid in DMF produces a polyureid. ... 

Interestingly, reaction of hyaluronic acid with EDC in the presence of primary amines affords only theN-acyl urea derivatives, as proven by C- and N-labeling experiments. Water soluble carbodiimides are also used in the depolymerization of polyuronides via reduction of their carbodiimide activated carboxyl groups. ... 

Reactions are carried out at room temperature in dichloromethane which is an excellent swelling agent for polystyrene supports. Dimethylformamide can be added to increase the solubility of some amino acid derivatives e.g. Boc-Arg(N02), Boc-Arg(Tos), Boc-His(Tos), Boc-Trp, and Boc-Asn(Xan), but it increases the rate of undesirable rearrangement of O-acylisourea to A-acylurea which is not reactive.P The principal limitations in using car-bodiimides are racemization, rearrangement of O-acylisourea to A-acylurea 5, and dehydration of Asn and Gin side-chain carboxamide groups. Fortunately this dehydration problem is completely avoided by the use of additives such as A-hydroxysuccinimide (HOSu) and 1,2,3-benzotriazol-l-ol (HOBt). Additives also reduce racemization and A-acyl-urea formation. Other carbodiimides have also been used in SPPS such as or N-tert-... 

The acyl ureas are the main side products at elevated temperatures, and in order to shift the reaction toward peptide bond formation, temperatures around 0° should be used. Presence of an amino group during the reaction, also reduces the formation of acyl urea. The most commonly used carbodiimide for peptide synthesis performed in organic solvents is... 

We selected a novel approach to design a masked or blocked aliphatic diisocyanate based on the fact that 1,3-disubstituted ureas undergo facile thermal dissociation to produce an isocyanate and an amine derivative. ) In the dissociation of mono acyl and aroyl ureas an isocyanate and a carboxylic acid amide is simultaneously produced. If the urea group is part of a cyclic system both fragments are parts of the same molecule. 

The application of additives was investigated in order to suppress or diminish side reactions (A-acyl urea formation and racemization). Al-Hydroxysuccinimide (HOSu), 1-hydroxybenzotriazole (HoBt), and ethyl l-hydroxy-lH-l,2,3-triazole-4-carboxylate are potential additives in the DCC-based coupling synthesis. Solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) is a variant of the linear (stepwise) coupling of amino acids in the C N direction using two major protection groups Boc/Bzl (iert-butoxycarbonyl/benzyl) and Fmoc/tBu (/9-fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl/ieri-butyl). The synthetic scheme for peptides on a polymer (Atherton and Sheppard, 1989 Fields, 1997) is illustrated in Figure 8.1. 

---