Optical 2-benzyl-5-hydroxy-4-oxopentanoic acids against carboxypeptidase A:Synthesis,kinetic evaluation and X-ray crystallographic study

2-Benzyl-5-hydroxy-4-oxopentanoic acid 1 and its enantiomers were designed,synthesized and assayed for inhibitory activity against carboxypeptidase A(CPA,EC 3.4.17.1).To verify the role of the terminal hydroxyl group in 1 binding to CPA,2-benzyl-5- benzyloxy-4-oxopentanoic acid 2 was also synthesized and evaluated.The inhibition constants show that both L-1 and D-1 were shown to have strong binding affinity with L-1 being more potent than its enantiomer by 165-fold.On the other hand,the inhibition constant ...

Synthesis of Chiral α-Benzyl-β^(2)-hydroxy Carboxylic Acids through Iridium-Catalyzed Asymmetric Hydrogenation of α-Oxymethylcinnamic Acids

An asymmetric hydrogenation of α-oxymethylcinnamic acids was developed by using chiral spiro phosphineoxazoline/iridium complexes as catalysts to prepare β^(2)-hydroxycarboxylic acids with high reactivity(TON up to 2000)and excellent enantioselectivity(up to 99.5%ee).By using this highly efficient asymmetric hydrogenation as a key step,a concise total synthesis of natural product homoisoflavone(S)-(+)-4 was accomplished.