Hydroxy acidic activation

Lactic acid is also the simplest hydroxy acid that is optically active. L (+)-Lactic acid [79-33-4] (1) occurs naturally ia blood and ia many fermentation products (7). The chemically produced lactic acid is a racemic mixture and some fermentations also produce the racemic mixture or an enantiomeric excess of D (—)-lactic acid [10326-41-7] (2) (8). 

The hydroxy acid A was resolved with (+)-ephedrine and converted to optically active and PGEj (Ref. 2). 

Tiiazine 4-oxides 55 react with indoles in the presence of trifluoroacetic acid, giving more or less stable cr -adducts, 5-indolyl-4-hydroxy-4,5-dihydro-1,2,4-tiiazines 57, which were isolated from the reaction mixture (98ZOR429). In this case the acid activates the substrate, and the protonated 1,2,4-triazinium cation is more active toward nucleophilic attack. 

The much simpler steroid, 253, was fortuitously found to fulfill this role when injected into animals. Its lack of oral activity was overcome by incorporation of the 7a-thioacetate group. Reaction of the ethisterone intermediate, 77b, with a large excess of an organomagnesium halide leads to the corresponding acetylide salt carbonation with CO2 affords the carboxyllic acid, 251. This is then hydrogenated and the hydroxy acid cy-clized to the spirolactone. Oppenauer oxidation followed by treatment with chloranil affords the 4,6-dehydro-3-ketone (254). Conjugate addition of thiolacetic acid completes the synthesis of spironolactone (255), an orally active aldosterone antagonist. ... 

Tin/lithium exchange on the a-alkoxy stannanes and subsequent addition of carbon dioxide led to optically active (7-protected a-hydroxy acids 18 with retention of configuration and without any loss of stereochemical information11. 

In y-alkoxyfuranones the acetal functionality is ideally suited for the introduction of a chiral auxiliary simultaneously high 71-face selectivity may be obtained due to the relatively rigid structure that is present. With ( + )- or (—(-menthol as auxiliaries it is possible to obtain both (5S)- or (5/ )-y-menthyloxy-2(5//)-furanones in an enantiomerically pure form293. When the auxiliary acts as a bulky substituent, as in the case with the 1-menthyloxy group, the addition of enolates occurs trans to the y-alkoxy substituent. The chiral auxiliary is readily removed by hydrolysis and various optically active lactones, protected amino acids and hydroxy acids are accessible in this way294-29s-400. 

The use of enantiomerically pure (R)-5-menthyloxy-2(5.//)-furanone results in lactone enolates, after the initial Michael addition, which can be quenched diastereoselectively trans with respect to the /J-substituent. With aldehydes as electrophiles adducts with four new stereogenic centers arc formed with full stereocontrol and the products are enantiomerically pure. Various optically active lactones, and after hydrolysis, amino acids and hydroxy acids can be synthesized in this way317. 

S)-a-substituted P-bromo-a-hydroxy acids (S)-4 are very important chiral synthon for medicinally important compounds, such as potential new hypoglycemia active alkylglycidic acids (ref. 1) and anti-ulcer active misoprost (ref. 2). 

The reactivity of these oxidants towards organic substrates depends in a rough manner upon their redox potentials. Ag(II) and Co(III) attack unactivated and only slightly activated C-H bonds in cyclohexane, toluene and benzene and Ce(IV) perchlorate attacks saturated alcohols much faster than do Ce(lV) sulphate, V(V) or Mn(III). The last three are sluggish in action towards all but the active C-H and C-C bonds in polyfunctional compounds such as glycols and hydroxy-acids. They are, however, more reactive towards ketones than the two-equivalent reagents Cr(VI) and Mn(VIII) and in some cases oxidise them at a rate exceeding that of enolisation. 

Aromatic 2-hydroxy carboxylic acids are of special interest for applications. Among them, optically active mandelic acids are regarded as most important commercially. The synthetic potential of non-racemic 2-hydroxy acids lies in... 

Another important class of pharmaceuticals which is prepared from chiral 2-hydroxy acids is the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors. (R)-3-phenylpropionaldehyde cyanohydrin is transformed into the corresponding 2-hydroxy ester which after activation by sulfonylafion reacts with dipetides to give, under inversion of configuration, ACE inhibitors known as prils (Scheme 6). ... 

In addition to p-oxidation, two other oxidation routes are known for fatty acids, referred to as a- and co-oxidation. However, they exhibit a lower activity and initially involve the formation of a- and o-hydroxy acids, with subsequent con-versions thereof. These oxidation routes are of inferior energetic value as compared with p-oxidation presumably, they are implicated in special functions of the cell. 

The optically active glycols are a convenient starting material for the preparation of optically active carbinols, hydroxy-acids, etc. The biological method of asymmetric reduction is perhaps the only convenient method for the preparation of these glycols. The steps in the preparation of other optically active glycols arc identical with those of /-propylene glycol. In some cases it is found convenient to oxidize the chlorohydrin to the... 

The nitrile-hydrolyzing activity of Ar throb act er spp. NS SC 104 was shown to be resistant to the suppressing effect of a-hydroxy nitriles such as lactonitrile and HMTBN, and accumulated the corresponding a-hydroxy acid ammonium salt at a high concentration [77]. HMTBN (200 him) was added to a suspension of Ar throb act er spp. NSSC 104 cells (4% dew) in phosphate buffer (0.1 m, pH 7.5) and mixed at 30 °C seven more additions of the same amount of HMTBN were added at 1 h intervals, then a further eight additions made at 1.5 h intervals over a total reaction time of 19 h. At completion of the reaction, the concentration of 2-hydroxy-4-methylthiobutyrate... 

Fig. 8a, b. a Biosynthetic pathways for the major aliphatic components of suberin. b Representation of the active site of co-hydroxy acid dehydrogenase involved in the synthesis of the dicarboxylic acids characteristic of suberin. From [74]... 

How the aliphatic monomers are incorporated into the suberin polymer is not known. Presumably, activated co-hydroxy acids and dicarboxylic acids are ester-ified to the hydroxyl groups as found in cutin biosynthesis. The long chain fatty alcohols might be incorporated into suberin via esterification with phenylpro-panoic acids such as ferulic acid, followed by peroxidase-catalyzed polymerization of the phenolic derivative. This suggestion is based on the finding that ferulic acid esters of very long chain fatty alcohols are frequently found in sub-erin-associated waxes. The recently cloned hydroxycinnamoyl-CoA tyramine N-(hydroxycinnamoyl) transferase [77] may produce a tyramide derivative of the phenolic compound that may then be incorporated into the polymer by a peroxidase. The glycerol triester composed of a fatty acid, caffeic acid and a>-hydroxy acid found in the suberin associated wax [40] may also be incorporated into the polymer by a peroxidase. 

More recently, a series of sol-gel hydrophobized nanostructured silica matrices doped with the organocatalyst TEMPO (SiliaCat TEMPO) entered the market as suitable oxidation catalysts for the rapid and selective production of carbonyls and carboxylic acids. In the former case, SiliaCat TEMPO selectively mediates the oxidation of delicate primary and secondary alcohol substrates into valued carbonyl derivatives (Scheme 5.2), retaining its potent activity throughout several reaction cycles (Table 5.2).33 Using this catalyst, for example, enables the synthesis of extremely valuable a-hydroxy acids with relevant selectivity enhancement by coupling of SiliaCat TEMPO with rapid Ru04-mediated olefin dihydroxylation (Scheme 5.3).34... 

Tetrahydropyrrolo[l,4]oxazine 74, obtained by photoinduced electron-transfer (PET) oxidative activation of substituted prolinol, undergoes nucleophilic substitution of the OH at position C-3 with allyltrimethylsilane in the presence of TiCU (Scheme 8). The reaction was highly stereoselective and produced, after hydrolysis of the resultant amide 75, optically active a-hydroxy acid 76 together with the auxiliary (.S )-prolinol that can be effectively recycled <1998TL7153>. 

In view of these shortcomings, the system has been limited to only three classes of optically active organic compounds, the Sugars, amino acids and hydroxy acids. 

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