Rapid and scalable synthesis of innovative unnatural α,β or γ-amino acids functionalized with tertiary amines on their side-chains

Abstract

We report a selective ruthenium catalyzed reduction of tertiary amides on the side chain of Fmoc-Gln-OtBu derivatives, leading to innovative unnatural α,β or γ-amino acids functionalized with tertiary amines. Rapid and scalable, this process allowed us to build a library of basic unnatural amino acids at the gram-scale and directly usable for liquid- or solid-phase peptide synthesis. The diversity of available tertiary amines allows us to modulate the physicochemical properties of the resulting amino acids, such as basicity or hydrophobicity.