Pyrolysis of Amino Acid Derived Stabilised Ylides as a Route to Chiral Acetylenic Amines and Amino Acids and Gaba Analogues

Abstract

We recently reported the pyrolysis of stabilised ylides as a method for overall conversion of carboxylic acids to homologous acetylenic esters and terminal alkynes.^1,2 This has now been applied successfully to amino acids. A wide range of alkoxycarbonyl protected amino acids have been converted to the stable crystalline ylides 1. These have been fully characterised, and upon FVP, eliminate Ph₃PO to afford the protected acetylenic amino acids 2 in good yield and without significant racemisation. Subsequent reactions of these extremely versatile intermediates have been used to gain access to a wide variety of chiral amine and amino acids of great interest as potential selective enzyme inhibitors and components for modified peptide structures.