Amino acids catalysis

Suwannachot, Y. and Rode, B. M. (1999). Mutual amino acid catalysis in salt-induced peptide formation supports this mechanism s role in prebiotic peptide evolution. Origin Life Evol. Biosph., 5,463-71. 

In heterogeneous catalysis we distinguish usually two mechanisms—the acid-base catalysis, which may be of the same type as the amino acid catalysis, and the catalysis by semiconductors and metals. The theory of this last type of catalysis was developed by T. T. Volkenstein in the U.S.S.R., by Germain in France, and by other scientists in Germany and in the United States. This theory is related to what you have indicated for MgO. It is assumed that an electron deficiency or electron excess is introduced as an impurity that creates, ultimately on the surface, a defect that can bind quasi-chemically electron donors or electron acceptors, respectively. 

Klussmann M, Iwamura H, Mathew SP, Wells DH Jr, Pandya U, Armstrong A, Blackmond DG (2006) Thermodynamic control of asymmetric amplification in amino acid catalysis. Nature 441 621-623 Knowles WS (2002) Asymmetric hydrogenations (Nobel lecture). Angew Chem IntEd Engl 41 1998-2007... 

Thermodynamic Control of Asymmetric Amplification in Amino Acid Catalysis... 

In contrast to the early recognition of the importance of proline and proline-based secondary amine peptide catalysts as enzyme mimics, the potential of primary amines in asymmetric catalysis was much underestimated at that time, probably because of their known lower basicity in comparison to secondary amines. This is particularly surprising taking into consideration the fact that primary amino acid catalysis is of enormous importance in enzyme catalysis. For example, primaiy amines occur in the catalytic sites of several enzymes, such as type I aldolases, dehydratases, and decarboxylases. Therefore, primary amines as organocatalysts possess particular appeal. 

Ramachary and Reddy developed one of these sequences using an amino acid-catalyzed three-component reductive alkylation (TCRA) as the first reaction of their MCC. This multicomponent reaction involved an aldehyde 21, a malonate 22, and the Hantzsch ester 24 under amino acid catalysis starting with a Knoevenagel condensation, which was followed by hydrogenation of the formed olefin 23 to form... 

I2/K2C03, tetrabutylammonium hydroxide, tungsten phosphoric acid, ionic liquids, reactions in water, solvent-free conditions, microwave promoted reactions, reactions promoted by phase-transfer catalysts, and finally, for some very reactive substrates, uncatalyzed reactions. " Unfortunately for the practicing chemist, few of these conditions are well worked out enough or understood well enough to have become common, and almost all examples of the Knoevenagel condensation in the literature employ an amine base, or a salt thereof (Cope conditions, or amino acid catalysis) or TiCl4/Base(Lehnert conditions). ... 

Ethyl (l-methylpropvlidine)cyanoacetate (Dakin-Prout modification amino-acid catalysis) ... 

This chapter provides a snapshot of recent impressive advances in non-proline amino acid catalysis. A good range of enantioselective processes were reaUzed by... 

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