Formation of periodic γ-turns in α/β-hybrid peptides: DFT and NMR experimental evidence.

Hybrid peptidic oligomers comprising natural and unnatural amino acid residues that can exhibit biomolecular folding and hydrogen-bonding mimicry have attracted considerable interest in recent years. While a variety of hybrid peptidic helices have been reported in the literature, other secondary structural patterns such as γ-turns and ribbons have not been well explored so far. The present work reports the design of novel periodic γ-turns in the oligomers of 1:1 natural-α/unnatural trans-β-norborenene (TNAA) amino acid residues.

A flexible enantioselective total synthesis of diospongins A and B and their enantiomers using catalytic hetero-Diels-Alder/Rh-catalyzed 1,4-addition and asymmetric transfer hydrogenation reactions as key steps.

A unified enantioselective route to total synthesis of diospongins A and B and their enantiomers has been developed employing achiral starting materials. All three stereocenters were introduced by means of catalytic reactions.

Total synthesis of azumamide E and sugar amino acid-containing analogue.

An efficient and practical total synthesis of marine cyclic tetrapeptide, natural product azumamide E (1) is achieved via high-yielding reactions. The strategy also allowed us to synthesize the azumamide E-SAA (sugar amino acid) analogue (2), whose solution-phase NMR and biological activity studies were also carried out.

Beta-sugar aminoxy peptides as rigid secondary structural scaffolds.

Short homo-oligomers of a new building block, cis-beta(2,3)-furanoid sugar aminoxy acid, are designed, characterized, and found to exhibit rigid ribbon-like secondary structures composed of 5/7 bifurcated intramolecular hydrogen bonds.

Highly enantioselective carbon-carbon bond formation by Cu-catalyzed asymmetric [2,3]-sigmatropic rearrangement: application to the syntheses of seven-membered oxacycles and six-membered carbocycles.

A concise route for the syntheses of enantioenriched functionalized scaffolds of medium-sized oxacycles and carbocycles employing the chiral auxiliary-mediated Cu-catalyzed ylide formation/[2,3]-sigmatropic rearrangement as a key step was developed.