Products from Proline

Various schemes have been proposed to explain the production of nitrogen-containing heterocyclic compounds, such as pyrrolidines and piperidines, from proline. Nitrogen heterocyclic compounds are often potent flavouring chemicals. 

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It has been suggested that oroidin (135) and dibromophakellin (137) might be biogenetically related through a dihydrooroidin-type (138) intermediate, via an overall derivation of both sea sponge products from proline and histidine (181). 

Selected products from proline-catalyzed 6-enolendo aldolizations. 

Cycloaddition of the cyclic nitrone derived from proline benzyl ester with alkenes proceeds readily to give isoxazolidines with good regio-and stereoselectivity (Eq. 8.47).68 The reaction favors exo-mode addition. However, certain cycloadditions are reversible and therefore the product distribution may reflect thermodynamic rather than kinetic control. 

Enantiomerically pure tetrahydro-l//-pyrrolo[2, l -acrylamides derived from proline (see Section 11.11.7.4), are versatile intermediates for the synthesis of natural products or drugs. Compound 86a was submitted to debromination with Bu3SnH followed by ring opening in KOH and further reduction with BHj to give diol 89 that was then easily transformed into (A)-4-(2,2,4-trimethyl-l,3-dioxolan-4-yl)-lT>utanol 90, a key intermediate for )-frontalin, <2002TA155>,... 

The most common bicyclic 5-6 system with one bridgehead N-O and one extra heteroatom described in the period covered in this chapter has been the diketopiperazine derived from proline as it is present in natural products, in biologically active synthetic molecules, and has been used as starting material for the preparation of conformationally constrained peptidomimetics. The classical approach to this class of molecule is the ring closing of the dipeptide derived from proline and another amino acid via nucleophilic attack of the NH2 to the activated carboxylic group. This method has been applied several times to prepare different diketopiperazines for different uses. 

Compound 331 was prepared using the free amino acid derived by coupling the product between proline and a substituted tryptophan. It was employed for studies on the biosynthesis of the anthelmintic agent paraherquamide <2001T5303>. Compound 332 was obtained by TFA-mediated reaction from the corresponding NH-/-Bu dipeptide... 

It is noteworthy that there is another limiting factor in the choice of amino acid types at the junction sites which affect the enzymatic process of the intein. For example, in the case of SceVMA (also called PI-Seel) from the IMPACT system, proline, cysteine, asparagine, aspartic acid, and arginine cannot be at the C-terminus of the N-terminal target protein just before the intein sequence. The presence of these residues at this position would either slow down the N-S acyl shift dramatically or lead to immediate hydrolysis of the product from the N-S acyl shift [66]. The compatibility of amino acid types at the proximal sites depends on the specific inteins and needs to be carefully considered during the design of the required expression vectors. The specific amino acid requirements at a particular splicing site depends on the specific intein used and is thus a crucial point in this approach. 

The functionalization of proline has been used to synthesize natural products from the indolizidine alkaloid family [71]. To this end, Lhommet and coworkers utilized... 

Split synthesis of the library using four amino acids, four aldehydes, and five olefins in the presence of four mercaptoacyl chlorides (Scheme 3.110) generated the required proline library that was screened, after TEA cleavage of the products from the solid support, for inhibition of angiotensin converting enzyme ACE. 

The chiral, nonracemic, tricyclic dioxopiperazine derivative 1, easily obtained from proline, is transformed with sodium amide in liquid ammonia into its monoenolate, then alkylated with bromoethane to give the chiral, nonracemic ethylation product 2. On deprotonation and further alkylation. 2 furnishes the achiral fra/w-dialkylated product 3 in good yield1. 

Early investigations have demonstrated that aldehydes and ketones can be enantioselectiveiy a-alkyl-ated via Michael reactions of the corresponding enamines, prepared from proline-derived secondary amines.149-156 However, optical purities of the products were generally low and never exceeded 59% ee.iS1 This kind of asymmetric a-alkylation could later be improved, allowing for example the preparation of compound (141) with high ee (Scheme 51).156-160... 

The results reveal that baker s yeast is a potent source for precursors of 2-acetyl-l-pyrroline. It appears likely that the flavor compound is formed in the yeast cells from proline and dihydroxyacetone phosphate via 1-pyrroline and pyruvaldehyde. This is corroborated by the results of c-labeling experiments which showed that the acetyl group in the Acp stems from a sugar degradation product and that the pyrroline ring was derived from proline. 

The alkaloid colchicine binds tightly to tubulin and this characteristic has been used (Fig. 6.1) to isolate a tubulin-like fraction from H. diminuta, with properties similar to tubulin from other organisms. Furthermore, colchicine affects the qualitative distribution of [3H]proline-incorporated protein in this worm, with label accumulating in the parenchyma (195). This suggests that colchicine inhibits translocation in the tegument and provides evidence that microtubules within the internuncial processes facilitate movement of cell products from tegumentary cytons (Chapter 2) to the body surface for subsequent release. 

Zhang and co-workers [186] reported a microwave-assisted one-pot, three-component [3-f2] cycloaddition reaction of a fluorous amino ester, an aldehyde and a maleimide to afford bicyclic prolines 135 in yields up to 94%. Fluorous solid phase extraction (F-SPE) has been used effectively to separate the product from the reaction mixture (Scheme 105). 

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