Azide method

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. 

This reaction sequence is much less prone to difficulties with isomerizations since the pyridine-like carbons of dipyrromethenes do not add protons. Yields are often low, however, since the intermediates do not survive the high temperatures. The more reactive, faster but less reliable system is certainly provided by the dipyrromethanes, in which the reactivity of the pyrrole units is comparable to activated benzene derivatives such as phenol or aniline. The situation is comparable with that found in peptide synthesis where the slow azide method gives cleaner products than the fast DCC-promoted condensations (see p. 234). 

Entries 5 to 8 are synthetic applications in more complex molecules. Entries 5 and 6 illustrate the diphenylphosphoroyl azide method. Entry 7 was used in the late stages of the synthesis of an antitumor macrolide, zampanolide, to introduce the amino group. The ultimate target molecule in Entry 8 is himandrine, one of several polycyclic alkaloids isolated from an ancient plant species. 

The acyl-azide method of coupling (Figure 2.13) has been available for about a century, but it is not attractive for routine use because it involves four distinct steps that include two stable intermediates that require purification. In addition, aminolysis of the azide is slow. The first step involves preparation of the ester (see Section 3.17), which can be methyl, ethyl, or benzyl. The ester is converted to the hydrazide by reaction in alcohol with excess hydrazine at ambient or higher... 

J Meienhofer. The azide method in peptide synthesis, in E Gross, J Meienhofer, eds. The Peptides Analysis, Synthesis, Biology, Academic, New York, 1979, pp 197-239. 

Acyl azides (see Section 2.13) The acyl-azide method of coupling is unique for two reasons. First, it is the only case in which the immediate precursor of the activated form of the peptide is not the parent acid. The starting material is the peptide ester that is obtained from the amino acid ester by usual chain assembly (Figure 2.25, path A). Second, it is the only method that just about guarantees production of a peptide that is enantiomerically pure, provided scrupulous attention is paid to details of procedure. There is no danger for loss of chirality during conversion of the ester to the hydrazide and then the azide, but care must be taken to avoid contact of... 

J Honzl, J Rudinger. Amino acids and peptides. XXXIII. Nitrosyl chloride and butyl nitrite as reagents in peptide synthesis by the azide method suppression of amide formation. Coll Czech Chem Commun 26, 2333, 1961. 

Use me acyl-azide method of coupling (see Sections 2.13 and 7.16) with particular care to avoid contact of me azide with tertiary amine. 

The traditional method for preparing activated esters of A -protected dipeptides is combination of the A-protected amino acid with the amino acid ester (Figure 7.16). The latter is obtained by A-deprotection of the diprotected amino acid in an acidic milieu. Coupling is achievable using the carbodiimide, mixed-anhydride, and acyl-azide methods. Success with this approach indicates that the esterified residues react preferentially with the other derivatives and not among themselves. The chain cannot be extended to the protected tripeptide ester because the dipeptide ester cyclizes too... 

A. C. Richardson, Amino sugars via reduction of azides, Methods Carbohydr. Chem., 6 (1972) 218. 

As the main drawback of the azide method, the relatively long reaction times may be mentioned and as a possible side reaction in the case of slow and difficult cyclizations the occurrence of Curtius rearrangement with formation of ureido compounds 126 ... 

Indeed, there were those who described the azide coupling method as racemization-free. [15l However, this viewpoint proved to be overly optimistic. In 1970, Sieber reported that during a synthesis of calcitonin M by the azide method, significant epimerization occurred during two of the segment condensation steps in one of these reactions 40% of the epimerized product was observed. 16 There is a crucial detail in the experimental procedure here. The workers used tert-butyl nitrite to convert a peptide hydrazide into a peptide azide, but did not isolate the azide as was typical for research at that time. Instead, they neutralized the active intermediate in situ with DIPEA and added the amino segment for acylation. This demonstrates another important theme in the control of epimerization, the presence of a tertiary amine in the reaction mixture, even if only as a neutralization equivalent, can result in the formation of epimerized products. Indeed, most observations of racemization during... 

The next development in direct detection of nitrenium ions came from McClelland et al. ° who applied the azide method to LFP measurements. This permitted the direct detection of those arylnitrenium ions implicated in carcinogenic DNA damage. McClelland s approach proved to be particularly useful in the study of 4-aryl and 4-alkoxy substituted phenylnitrenium ions. Apparently, the corresponding singlet nitrenes are sufficiently long lived to allow for protonation in aqueous solution. Several arylnitrenium ions studied by this route are described in Table 13.6. 

It has been known for many years, however, that the (3-branched amino acids, especially valine and isoleucine, cause problems in synthesis,14,5] and special care and additional reaction time are required when -substituted amino acids are added to a growing peptide chain in synthesis. For example, in the synthesis of [2,4-diisoleucine]oxytocin efforts to couple the isoleucine to isoleucine by the azide method failed and only the rearranged product was obtained 61 Also, it is much more difficult to hydrolyze peptide bonds formed between two or more contiguous -substituted amino adds using standard 6M HC1 conditions. For example, in the hydrolysis of [2,4-diisoleucine]oxytocin (3 isoleucine residues adjacent to each other) complete hydrolysis takes 60 hours. 

Unfortunately, A-(9-fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl)aziridine-2-carboxylic acid cannot be used in peptide synthesis, since N-deprotection of the respective peptides with secondary amines leads to oxazoline or dehydroamino acid side products. Similarly, N-(tert-butoxy-carbonyl)aziridine-2-carboxylic acid is inappropriate due to the instability of the aziridine moiety to TFA treatment. Attempts to convert A-tritylaziridine-2-carboxylic acid into homogenous and stable active esters as useful intermediates in peptide synthesis leads to positive results only in the case of the pentafluorophenyl ester. 47 Consequently, this active ester seems to be the method of choice for acylating peptides. The related Abhydroxysuc-cinimide and A-3-hydroxy-4-oxo-3,4-dihydro-l,2,3-benzotriazine ester could not be isolated in pure form and have therefore been used as crude products. 47 Access to 2-carbonylazir-idine peptides is also possible by carbodiimide-mediated coupling. Additionally, alkylamides of A-tritylaziridine-2-carboxylic acid are prepared by the azide method,1 5 yet this method fails in peptide coupling steps. 85 ... 

A protected serine hydrazide was condensed by the azide method to an S-protected tripeptide H-Asn-Cys-Tyr-NHNH-Cbz to form a protected tetrapeptide Boc-Ser-Asn-Cys-Tyr-NHNH-Cbz 1.02 g of N-rerr-butoxycarbonylserine hydrazide (Boc-Ser-NH-NHj) >n DMF containing HCI in dioxane was mixed at -20 °C with reri-butyl nitrite. This mixture containing the azide Boc-Ser-Nj was neutralized with triethylamine, and a solution of 3.4 g asparaginyl-S-(ethylcarbamoyl)cysteinyl-tyrosinyl 2-(benzyloxy-carbonyl)hydrazide trifluoroacetate was added. After 72 hours at 4 °C a simple work-up procedure and precipitation from methanol-petroleum ether yielded 3 g of impure protected retrapeptide hydrazide. It... 

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