Synthesis of cyclic oligomers from histidine-derived building blocks using dynamic combinatorial chemistry

Histidine-derived hydrazide acetal monomers (3-dimethoxymethylbenzoyl)-L-histidine methyl ester 1 and (3-dimethoxymethylbenzoyl)-tau-benzyl-L-histidine methyl ester 2 were prepared from a histidine methyl ester and a tau-benzyl-histidine methyl ester by N-acylation with 3-(dimethoxymethyl)benzoic acid (3) followed by hydrazinolysis. Acid-promoted hydrolysis of each acetal hydrazide initially produced a library of cyclic oligomers that eventually converted to a cyclic dimer. The cyclic dimers 12 and 22 were spectroscopically characterized and found to direct their imidazole-bearing sidechains outward (exo). No evidence for templating the cyclic oligomers was observed using various metal ions and anionic substrates. The average of pKa1 and pKa2 of dimer 12 was determined by potentiometric titration to be 6.6. Dimer 12 was found to catalyze the hydrolysis of p-nitrophenylacetate 10 times faster than 4-methyl imidazole.