Ab. Smith et al., DE-NOVO DESIGN, SYNTHESIS, AND X-RAY CRYSTAL-STRUCTURES OF PYRROLINONE-BASED BETA-STRAND PEPTIDOMIMETICS, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 116(22), 1994, pp. 9947-9962
The de novo design and synthesis of a novel non-peptide scaffolding fo
r beta-strand/sheet mimics are described. The scaffold consists of rep
eating 3,5,5-trisubstituted pyrrolinone (enaminone) units punctuated w
ith appropriate amino acid side chains. The iterative construction of
the pyrrolinones exploits a highly efficient cyclization of metalloimi
nes, the latter derived from C-terminal aldehydes and readily availabl
e alpha-substituted alpha-amino ester building blocks. As predicted by
interactive computer modeling and confirmed by X-ray crystallography,
the polypyrrolinones present the side chains and carbonyl hydrogen-bo
nd accepters in a solid-state conformation which mimics polypeptide be
ta-sheets. Importantly, the enaminone NH protons form hydrogen bonds b
oth intramolecularly, stabilizing the beta-strand conformation, and in
termolecularly, promoting sheet formation. The presence or absence of
the nitrogen protecting group controlled antiparallel versus parallel
sheet formation.