Fmoc-Cys(Ddm) and Fmoc-Cys(MBom): Evaluation of Thiol Protecting Groups for Cysteine to Supress the Base-Catalyzed Racemization in Fmoc Chemistry (#38)
Phosphonium
and uronium salt-based reagents enable efficient and effective coupling
reactions, and are indispensable in peptide chemistry, especially in
machine-assisted solid phase peptide synthesis (SPPS). However, after the
activating and coupling steps with these reagents in the presence of tertiary
amines, Fmoc derivatives of Cys are known to be considerably racemized during
their incorporation. To avoid this side reaction, a coupling method mediated by
phosphonium/uronium reagents with a weaker base, such as
2,4,6-trimethylpyridine (TMP), than the ordinarily used N,N-diisopropylethylamine (DIEA) or that by carbodiimide has been
recommended. However, these methods are appreciably inferior to the standard protocol
applied for SPPS, i.e. a 1-min
preactivation procedure of coupling with phosphonium or uronium reagents/DIEA
in DMF, in terms of coupling efficiency and also, the former method cannot
reduce racemization of Cys(Trt) to an acceptable level (< 1.0%) even when the
preactivation procedure is omitted. Here, the 4,4’-dimethoxydiphenylmethyl
(Ddm) and 4-methoxybenzyloxymethyl (MBom) groups were demonstrated to be
acid-labile S-protecting groups that can
suppress racemization of Cys to an acceptable level (< 1.0%) when the
respective Fmoc derivatives are incorporated via the standard SPPS protocol of
phosphonium or uronium reagents with the aid of DIEA in DMF. Furthermore, these
protecting groups significantly reduced the rate of racemization compared to
the Trt group even in the case of microwave (MW)-assisted SPPS performed at a
high temperature.