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Updated: Jul 18, 2026

A Direct, Early Stage Guanidinylation Protocol for the Synthesis of Complex Aminoguanidine-containing Natural Products
Published on: September 9, 2016
One-step synthesis of hypoxanthine from glycinamide and diformylurea
Irene M Lagoja1, Piet Herdewijn
1Laboratory of Medicinal Chemistry, Rega Institute for Medical Research, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Minderbroedersstraat 10, B-3000 Leuven.
Abstract:
Because of their easy availability and their relative chemical stability, urea, formic acid, and glycine might have played a role in the assembly process of nucleobases. In this paper, a short reaction path is described to prepare hypoxanthine starting from the above mentioned precursors. The formation of hypoxanthine has been verified by high-resolution mass spectrometry with the 15N-labelled urea as starting material, and HPLC analysis. The yield of this condensation reaction has been determined spectrophotometrically.
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