Amino acids carboxylic acid conversion

A key biochemical reaction of amino acids is their conversion to peptides, polypeptides, and proteins. In all these substances amino acids are linked together by amide bonds. The amide bond between the amino group of one amino acid and the carboxyl of another is called a peptide bond. Alanylglycine is a representative dipeptide. 

In this chapter we intend to outline the general methods by which the thiazolic ring is synthetized from open-chain compounds. The conversion of one thiazole compound to another is not discussed here, but in appropriate later chapters. Thus the conversion of thiazole carboxylic acids, halogeno-, amino-, hydroxy-, and mercaptothiazoles, to the corresponding unsubstituted thiazoles is treated in Chapters IV through VII, respectively. 

Reaction of carboxylate ion with nitrophenyl sulfites gives the carboxylate -nitrophenyl esters. If the -nitrophenyl sulfite is unsymmethcal (02NCgH40S(0)0R, where R is ethyl or phenyl), carboxylate attacks the -nitrophenyl side (69). Some amino acids react with methyl and benzyl sulfites in the presence of -toluenesulfonic acid to give methyl and benzyl esters of the amino acids as -toluenesulfonate salts (70). With alcohols, the conversion of henzil to a monoacetal upon addition of sulfuric acid to the henzil in methanol and dimethyl sulfite proceeds in high yield (71). 

The phenyl group became a practical protective group for carboxylic acids when Sharpless published a mild, effective one-step method for its conversion to a carboxylic acid. It has recently been used in a synthesis of the amino acid statine, where it served as a masked or carboxylic acid equivalent. ... 

These formulae explain the scission products of the two alkaloids and the conversion of evodiamine into rutaecarpine, and were accepted by Asahina. A partial synthesis of rutaecarpine was effected by Asahina, Irie and Ohta, who prepared the o-nitrobenzoyl derivative of 3-)3-amino-ethylindole-2-carboxylic acid, and reduced this to the corresponding amine (partial formula I), which on warming with phosphorus oxychloride in carbon tetrachloride solution furnished rutaecarpine. This synthesis was completed in 1928 by the same authors by the preparation of 3-)S-amino-ethylindole-2-carboxylic acid by the action of alcoholic potassium hydroxide on 2-keto-2 3 4 5-tetrahydro-3-carboline. An equally simple synthesis was effected almost simultaneously by Asahina, Manske and Robinson, who condensed methyl anthranilate with 2-keto-2 3 4 5-tetrahydro-3-carboline (for notation, see p. 492) by the use of phosphorus trichloride (see partial formulae II). Ohta has also synthesised rutaecarpine by heating a mixture of 2-keto-2 3 4 5-tetrahydrocarboline with isatoic anhydride at 195° for 20 minutes. 

In base the tetrahedral intennediate is fonned in a manner analogous to that proposed for ester saponification. Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 20.8 show the fonnation of the tetrahedral intennediate in the basic hydrolysis of amides. In step 3 the basic amino group of the tetrahedral intennediate abstracts a proton from water, and in step 4 the derived ammonium ion dissociates. Conversion of the carboxylic acid to its conesponding carboxylate anion in step 5 completes the process and renders the overall reaction ineversible. 

For carboxyl terminal determination of peptides by means of CDI the terminal carboxylic acid group of the peptide is selectively reduced with sodium dihydrobis(2-methoxy-ethoxy)aluminate to an alcohol. Subsequent conversion of the amino alcohol moiety with CDI yields an 7V-acyl-2-oxazolidone derivative, from which the oxazolidone unit can be easily removed and characterized.[56]... 

Direct hydrogenation of amino acids to amino alcohols was first examined by Adkins et al. (3) via the esters, and recently studied by Antons and Beitzke in patents (4). Using Ru/C catalysts at high pressures (>14 MPa) and mild temperatures (70-150 °C), Antons demonstrated the conversion of carboxylic acids and amino acids with retention of optical activity in the product alcohols. High yields (>80%) and high enantiomeric purity (>97% in many cases) were achieved. Broadbent et al. had demonstrated earlier that under certain conditions hydrogenation of amino acids can be accompanied by deamination (8). 

A direct catalytic conversion of esters, lactones, and carboxylic acids to oxazolines was efficiently achieved by treatment with amino alcohols in the presence of the tetranuclear zinc cluster Zn4(0C0CF3)60 as catalyst, essential for condensation and cyclodehydration reactions. For example, the use of (5)-valinol allowed the easy synthesis of oxazolines 125 and 126 in satisfactory yields <06CC2711>. A one-pot direct preparation of various 2-substituted oxazolines (as well as benzoxazoles and oxadiazoles) was also performed from carboxylic acids and amino alcohols (or aminophenols or benzhydrazide) using Deoxo-Fluor reagent <06TL6497>. 

Typical examples are the conversion of the neutral form of an amino acid into its zwitterionic form, the helix-coil transitions in polypeptides and polynucleotides, and other conformational changes in biopolymers. Reactions of higher molecularity in which reactants and products have different dipole moments are subject to the same effect (association of the carboxylic acids to form hydrogen-bonded dimers). Equilibrium involving ions are often more sensitive to the application of an electric field ... 

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