Protection as benzyl ethers

Hydroxy protection, the temporary protection of the primary and secondary hydroxy functions of Ser and Thr, respectively, and the aromatic hydroxy group of Tyr in peptide synthesis. The blocking of these functionalities is necessary as they can react with acylating reagents. In SPPS, these amino acids are usually protected as benzyl ethers applying Boc/Bzl tactics or as tert.-butyl ethers in Fmoc/Bu chemistry. 

The hydroxyl groups which are going to be sulfated are protected by aeetyl groups, the hydroxyl groups being free in the final pentasaccharide are protected as benzyl ethers. 

The use of trichloroimidates for the preparation of ethers is an effective method for O-alkylation of alcohols [27]. This method has found widespread use in the protection of alcohols as benzyl ethers since the corresponding trichlorobenzylimi-date is inexpensive and commercially available. The mechanism involves activation of the imidate with a catalytic amount of a strong acid (typically TfOH) which leads to ionization of the electrophile and the formation of carbocation which is rapidly trapped by an alcohol. For the preparation of sec-sec ethers, this protocol has been limited to glycosidation reactions, due to the SN1 nature of the reaction which often leads to diastereomeric mixtures of products [26],... 

Some illustrative examples from the field of polyquinanes are the synthesis of some derivatives of bicyclo[3.3.0]octane 6 (Scheme 6.7) [12] [15] -which have been used in the total syntheses of coriolin, hirsutic acid and quadrone- and the synthesis of triquinacene 7 and some of its derivatives. The retrosynthetic analysis of perhydrotriquinacene-l,4,7-trione (7a) is shown in Scheme 6.7bis. In the actual synthesis the hydroxy groups must be protected either as trialkylsilyl ethers or more conveniently as benzyl ethers [16] [17]. 

Asymmetric epoxidation of 10a under standard conditions yields the crystalline epoxy alcohol 2a in 95% ee (91% chemical yield). Treatment of 9a with thioanisol in 0.5N NaOH, in rerf-butyl alcohol solution, gives -after protection of the hydroxyl groups as benzyl ethers- the sulfide a (60% overall yield) through an epoxide ringopening process involving a Payne rearrangement. Since the sulfide could not be hydrolysed to the aldehyde 7a without epimerisation at the a-position, it was acetoxylated in 71% yield under the conditions shown in the synthetic sequence (8a... 

The enzymatically catalyzed kinetic resolution of amino alcohols has been established on the multi-ton scale by BASF [7] (Scheme 7.14). Initial studies gave poor selectivity for the unprotected alcohols, as the resolution of trows-2-aminocyclopen-tanol (racemic 28) gave the amine (S,S) 29 and the amide (R,R) 30 in 25% . When the hydroxy functionality was protected as an ether, then resolution of racemic benzyl ether 31 proceeds with high to the give the amine (S,S) 32 and the RR amide 33 with >99.5 and 93 % respectively [33, 34]. 

Phenols protected as /-BuMe2Si ethers can be converted directly to methyl or benzyl ethers (Mel or BnBr, KF, DMF, rt, >90% yield).7... 

Protection of the peripheral phenolic groups as benzyl ethers was selected so that regioselective cleavage of these ethers in the presence of interior aliphatic ether linkages could be effected to liberate phenolic groups at some later stage. These functionalized dendrons were coupled to various anchor cores to produce... 

Maiti and Roy reported a selective method for deprotection of primary allylic, benzylic, homoallylic and aryl TBS ethers using aqueous DMSO at 90° C. All other TBS-protected groups, benzyl ethers, THP ethers as well as methyl ethers remain unaffected. 

Palladium-carbonIhydrogen chloride Protection of alcohol groups as benzyl ethers Selective removal of the protective group... 

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